Quality of Life: Hearing Loss and Cancer Treatment

Introduction: One of the negative impacts of hearing loss is communication difficulty, which favors isolation and depression. Cancer patients may also experience hearing loss as a result of antineoplastic treatment. Thus, the impact of hearing loss can be seen as other side effects on patients’ quality of life (QOL). Assessing the QOL of cancer patients and those who have hearing loss allows us to understand the difficulties experienced by the subjects affected by both diseases. Objective: Analyze the audiological findings and the quality of life of cancer and non-cancer patients. Method: Anamnesis, application the QOL questionnaire (SF-36), meatoscopy and conventional tonal audiological evaluation were carried out in 68 volunteers of both genders. They were divided in two groups: Control Group (CG) (32 participants) and Oncological Group (OG) (36 participants). The CG was composed of subjects without a history of neoplasia and OG must have anatomopathological diagnosis of neoplasia with normal hearing thresholds before cancer treatment. For statistical analysis, the Student T and Mann Whitney tests were used with a fixed critical level of 5% (P ≥ 0.05). Results: SF-36 analysis, there was a significant positive relationship between the GO and two domains: general health state and mental health. Subjects with hearing loss had worse score at mental health and the presence of tinnitus had had a positive relation to social and emotional aspects beyond pain. CG with hearing loss had a worse score in two domains: vitality and mental health. Furthermore, GO with hearing loss had an emotional limitation as the worst domain. Conclusion: Hearing loss and cancer treatment affects QOL, and tinnitus is more devasting. Keywords: Quality of life; Cancer; Hearing Loss; Tinnitus