Chemotherapy drug puts young children with cancer at high risk of hearing loss

摘要

2021 SEP 17 (NewsRx) - By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Disease Prevention Daily- A chemotherapy drug known to cause hearing loss in children is more likely to do so the earlier in life children receive it, new UBC research has found. Cisplatin is a life-saving treatment for many children with cancer, but the study published in Cancer shows that the hearing of very young children is impacted early during treatment and is affected to a greater extent than that of older children. "This is significant as even a moderate loss of hearing can impact social development in children, particularly when it occurs during a peak time of language acquisition," said the study's senior author Dr. Bruce Carleton, professor at UBC's faculty of medicine's department of pediatrics and an investigator and director of the Pharmaceutical Outcomes Programme at BC Children's Hospital. Previous studies have shown up to 60 per cent of children treated with cisplatin suffer from hearing loss and 40 per cent of those children will need hearing aids.