Objective:

To evaluate the association of the moment of administration of intratympanic dexamethasone with the auditory results in patients with sudden idiopathic hearing loss.

Method:

An observational, longitudinal, analytical, retrospective study on patients treated for sudden idiopathic hearing loss with dexamethasone sodium phosphate as initial management. Auditory threshold, auditory gain (dB) and percentage of patients who improved from those who started treatment in the first week (group 1S) versus those started management from the second week (group 2S) are compared. A p < 0.05 was considered significant.

Results:

101 cases (37 males and 64 female) were included. Before disease, patients had similar auditory function, after treatment patients in group 1S had significantly better phonetic discrimination than those in group 2S (33.9 ± 18.3 vs. 43.6 ± 26.1 dB; p = 0.036) hearing gain in group 1S was 32.0±11.9 dB and in group 2S was 18.2 ± 9.5 dB (p < 0.001). 93.5% of those who started treatment the first week had auditory improvement while only 61.8% in second week (p < 0.001).

Conclusions:

Intratympanic dexamethasone sodium phosphate administered in the first week was more effective in inducing better phonetic discrimination in most cases and is safe than in the second week.