Abstract
Medical interventions to combat serious infection or malignancies carry significant
morbidities, including ototoxicity. While these lifesaving drugs are often necessary
to preserve life, the impact on quality of life for survivors is increasingly concerning
for families and healthcare providers. Of primary importance for medical prescribers
are appropriately sensitive ototoxicity grading scales and audiological monitoring
protocols for surveillance for hearing loss. The intent of grading scales is to help
communicate complicated audiological information to non-audiologist healthcare providers
(such as oncologists) to help them make good decisions with regards to chemotherapy
dosing. Appropriate audiological monitoring helps reduce the time delay between the
adventitious onset of hearing loss and the diagnosis and intervention. Finally, pediatric
ototoxicity grading and monitoring protocols help ensure timely access to adequate
hearing habilitation, verification and validation of the management of permanent medication-induced
hearing loss and tinnitus in children.
Keywords
ototoxicity - cisplatin chemotherapy - aminoglycosides
