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Is there any correlation between chronic noise-induced hearing loss and mastoid pneumatization volume? A preliminary study. Objectives: To investigate the possible association between chronic noise-induced hearing loss and the volume of mastoid pneumatization.
Methodology: The study involved 46 subjects employed in the press and montage department of a gun factory: 28 in the study group with noise-induced hearing loss and 18 in the control group with no hearing loss. The volume of mastoid pneumatization was measured with computed tomography. Student’s t test was used in the comparison of the mastoid volumes of the study and the control groups.
Results: The intergroup evaluations showed no significant difference between the study and control group with regards to age, use of substances or ototoxic drugs, systemic diseases, use of personal hearing protectors, duration of occupational and non-occupational noise exposure was observed (P > 0.05). The mean values of mastoid pneumatization in the study and the control groups were 9717.6 mm3 and 11005.8 mm3 , respectively. Although the volume of mastoid pneumatization was smaller in the study group than in the control group, this difference was not statistically significant (P > 0.05).
Conclusions: This preliminary study showed that there was no significant correlation between mastoid pneumatization volume and chronic noise-induced hearing loss. However, this correlation could be significant in further studies with a larger number of subjects.