Impaired Hearing at High Frequency in Patients with Ankylosing Spondylitis: A Report from Japan

We analyzed cases of hearing impairment in Japanese patients with ankylosing spondylitis (AS), as only two similar studies from Asia are found in the literature. Patients were diagnosed using the revised diagnostic criteria for AS as well as positive MRI findings of the sacro-iliac joints. Patients older than sixty years were excluded because of potential age-related hearing impairment. Four patients met the study criteria and were included in the analysis. Three patients were found to have high-frequency hearing impairment, presumably with cochlear dysfunction. In addition, the patients with AS are reported to have HLA B27 antigen positivity with high frequency in the European countries. Therefore, HLA B27 positivity is also studied. HLA B27 was only one patient positive. Hearing impairment in Japanese patients with AS is also frequently observed but not associated with HLA B27 positivity.