Sudden sensorineural hearing loss associated with chronic periodontitis: A population-based study

Objective: Although plenty of researchers have reported systemic effects originating from chronic periodontitis (CP) on potentially distal inflammatory processes, such as those leading to coronary heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, and cancer, no study has reported the association between CP and sudden sensorineural hearing loss (SSNHL). The present study explored the association between CP and SSNHL using a large, population-based dataset in Taiwan. Study Design: A case-control study. Setting: Taiwan. Patients: We used administrative claims data from the Taiwan National Health Insurance program to identify 2,436 subjects with SSNHL and to randomly select 7,308 controls. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: A conditional logistic regression analysis was conducted to calculate the odds ratio (OR) for having been previously diagnosed with CP between cases and controls. Results: In total, 1,663 (17.1%) of the 9,744 sampled subjects had received a CP diagnosis before the index date; 520 (21.4%) were cases and 1143 (15.6%) were controls. The χ test suggested that there was a significant difference in the prevalence of previous SSNHL between cases and controls (p <0.001). The conditional logistic regression revealed after adjusting for hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, renal disease, coronary heart disease, obesity, and stroke, the OR of having previously received a CP diagnosis among cases was 1.44 (95% CI = 1.29∼1.63) that of controls. Conclusion: This study found that SSNHL was significantly associated with a previous diagnosis of CP. Further prospective studies are warranted to confirm our findings and clarify the underlying pathomechanism.