Is pharmaceutical treatment of noise-induced hearing loss a realistic option? Debate article.

Abstract

Essential conclusions The need for pharmaceutical treatment of noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) is pronounced.Animal studies indicate that such treatment is possible.Clinical trials must be designed so that the participants are not exposed to harmful noise.This implicates that prospective, randomised studies of possible drug effects on permanent NIHL are difficult to perform of ethical reasons.Indirect outcome measures of noise effects on hearing are considered less reliable and informative than permanent NIHL for the evaluation of the efficacy of a drug therapy.If drug therapies aiming to reduce NIHL are looked for, issues related to the design of clinical trials must be discussed and possibly revised.