Effect of coronary stent application on the audiovestibular functions in patients with ischemic heart disease

Labyrinthine function is tightly coupled to proper homeostasis. Perturbations in labyrinthine microcirculation can lead to significant cochlear and/or vestibular dysfunction. Indeed, no studies were conducted to examine the effect of improvement in cardiac performance after coronary stent application on either hearing or vestibular function. This study included 30 patients presenting to the Catheterization Unit in Sohag University Hospitals. Their age ranged from 41 to 60 years. Those patients were suffering from ischemic heart disease and proved to be candidates for Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (PCI) and stenting through a list of pre-operative investigations that included: Electrocardiography (ECG), Echocardiography and Coronary angiography. A full battery of audiovestibular investigations was conducted both preoperatively and postoperatively. Significant differences were encountered between preoperative and postoperative auditory brainstem response (ABR) latency measures, transient evoked otoacoustic emission (TEOAE), vestibular evoked myogenic potentials (VEMP) and Computerized Dynamic Posturography (CDP) tests. Both TEOAE and VEMP proved to be reliable indicators of defective labyrinthine circulation. Severity of chest pain as well as its duration proved to be the best predictors of the degree of total stenosis of coronary arteries. It can be concluded that affection of the labyrinthine peripheral microcirculation is an intimate consequence of deterioration of cardiac output (COP) secondary to ischemic heart disease.