Familial incidence of streptomycin hearing loss and hereditary weakness of the cochlea

Abstract

During the past 15 years, we have observed 16 families in which 2 or more members had their hearing affected by administration of dihydrostresptomycin (SM). Since the familial appearance of such kind of disease could be understood as the result of their special sensitive constitution for the drug, as with penicillin, familial SM hearing loss did not arouse interest in the field of clinical audiology. Considering the clinical features of SM hearing loss, however, it must be relevant to etiological considerations of some types of progressive hearing loss. More recently, we have observed several additional cases of families, in which some members have a hearing impairment after the administration of SM and some others with no SM administration. This paper is a report of a genetical and audiological study of 3 kindreds. Detailed histories, pedigrees and audiological findings are reported. In conclusion, we suppose that there must be a hereditary susceptibility of the cochlea which perhaps is inherited by a dominant trait; this hereditary susceptibility is triggered by some noxious stimuli and manifests a hearing impairment, as a form of the hereditary progressive sensori-neural hearing loss.