Recovery rate after acute acoustic trauma: a case series and meta-analysis

Objective: Steroids given systemically, locally, or both are the mainstay of treatment for acute acoustic trauma (AAT). The overall recovery rate (full, partial, and none) is undetermined. Study design: Original case series and systematic literature review. Setting: Case series of a tertiary referral center and a systematic literature review. Methods: Cases of AAT between 2012 and 2022 were retrospectively analyzed for demographics, acoustic trauma characteristics, treatment modality and delay and prognosis. This case series was added to the series identified by a systematic literature review. This review included “Medline” via “PubMed”, “EMBASE”, and “Google scholar”. All series were pooled for meta-analysis defining prognosis following steroidal treatment for AAT patients. Results: The pooled analyses included 662 ears, out of which 250 underwent complete recovery of hearing (overall proportion = 0.2809, 95%confidence interval [CI] = 0.1611–0.4178). Any recovery was recorded for 477 ears (overall proportion = 0.7185, 95% CI = 0.5671–0.8493) and no recovery was documented for 185 ears (overall proportion = 0.2815, 95% CI = 0.1507–0.4329). Conclusion: The rate of overall recovery for AAT is around 70%, and around 30% for full recovery when steroids are initiated within the first 2 weeks following the insult. Level of evidence: 3.