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Chemo-related hearing loss a problem for kids
Last Updated: 2005-12-19 12:28:40 -0400 (Reuters Health)
By Will Boggs, MD
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Hearing loss may be more common than previously reported in children with cancer who have undergone chemotherapy with highly effective platinum-type drugs such as cisplatin and carboplatin, researchers report.
"As pediatric patients experience improved survival, the effect and implications of high-frequency hearing loss with regard to academic achievement and speech and language development are important considerations, especially in patients younger than five years," they write in a report in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
"The key is doing standard audiometry (hearing tests) before each dose of platinum," Dr. Edward A. Neuwelt from Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, Oregon told Reuters Health.
Neuwelt and colleagues examined the incidence of and time to hearing loss in 67 patients aged 8 months to 23 years who received platinum-based chemotherapy.
Forty-one of the 67 patients (61 percent) experienced a decrease in hearing sensitivity after chemotherapy, the authors report, including 55 percent of children treated with cisplatin, 38 percent of children treated with carboplatin, and 84 percent of children treated with both agents.
Hearing loss was more severe among children who received chemotherapy for medulloblastoma (a type of brain tumor), osteosarcoma (a type of bone cancer), and neuroblastoma (cancer of developing nerve cells in the fetus), the researchers note, and males had higher-grade hearing loss than females.
After an average follow-up of 20.7 months, none of the patients experienced an improvement in hearing. Three patients had mild progression of their hearing loss, the report indicates, and all three had been treated with cranial radiation followed by cisplatin for medulloblastoma.
SOURCE: Journal of Clinical Oncology December 1, 2005.
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