Previous research suggests that diabetes can cause sensorineural hearing loss, the authors explain, but no previous study has documented quantitative changes in cochlear anatomy in patients with type 1 diabetes.

Dr. Hisaki Fukushima from the International Hearing Foundation, Minneapolis, Minnesota and colleagues examined temporal bones obtained at autopsy from patients with juvenile onset diabetes and compared them with similar bones obtained from normal controls.

Diabetics had significant thickening of the walls of the vessels of the basilar membrane and stria vascularis, the authors report, as well as a significantly greater loss of outer hair cells. Specimens from diabetics also showed a significantly greater loss of fibrocytes in the spiral ligament, as well as significantly higher atrophy of the stria vascularis.

The number of spiral ganglion cells did not differ between diabetics and controls, the researchers note.

"The findings in our study suggest that the microangiopathy associated with diabetes affects the inner ear vasculature and causes degeneration of inner ear structures," the authors write.

"Type 1 diabetes mellitus results in changes of the cochlea...that are likely to result in hearing loss," the investigators conclude.
Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg 2005;133:100-106.

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