Hydrogen Therapy Helps Restore Hearing Loss After Cancer Treatment
- Authors
- Jibing Chen, Xiaofeng Kong, Feng Mu, Tianyu Lu, Duanming Du, Kecheng Xu
- Journal
- Annals of Palliative Medicine
- Year
- 2019
- DOI
- 10.21037/apm.2019.11.18
- Study Type
- Human
- Outcome
- Positive
- Peer Reviewed
- Yes
- Country
- China
- Health Condition
- Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma
- Body System
- Auditory System
TL;DR
A new therapy using a mix of hydrogen and oxygen gases helped improve hearing loss in patients who had previously been treated for a type of cancer in the nasal area.
Key Finding
Three nasopharyngeal cancer patients with severe radiation-induced hearing loss reported measurable hearing improvement after 0.5 to 2 months of continuous hydrogen-oxygen therapy.
Summary
Three patients with nasopharyngeal cancer developed hearing loss years after receiving radiation therapy. Despite standard treatments, their hearing continued to worsen. When these patients received hydrogen-oxygen therapy (a gas treatment) for 0.5 to 2 months, they all reported some improvement in their hearing. This is the first report suggesting that hydrogen-oxygen therapy might help reverse radiation-related hearing damage.
Practical Takeaway
While this case report suggests hydrogen-oxygen therapy may help with radiation-induced hearing loss, it involves only three patients with no control group, so the results are preliminary. Much larger, controlled studies are needed before any conclusions can be drawn about effectiveness or whether this approach would work for other people or other causes of hearing loss.
Abstract
Three patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma developed binaural secretory otitis media 12, 2, and 0.5 years after radiotherapy, respectively. The secretions subsided after conventional drug and drainage treatments, but hearing continued to deteriorate until severe loss was documented in both ears. After examination of the eardrum and tympanum, patients were enrolled in a clinical trial in the first half of 2019 (ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT03818347). After 0.5, 1 and 2 months of continuous hydrogen–oxygen therapy, our first three patients reported different levels of improvement in binaural hearing. This is the first report to show that, after treatment for nasopharyngeal carcinoma, hearing loss can be alleviated using hydrogen–oxygen therapy.