Labyrinthine pathology of chronic renal failure patients treated with hemodialysis and kidney transplantation

Abstract

Abstract An audiologic study of 290 hemodialysis and renal transplant patients revealed that in 43 of these patients significant hearing loss developed which could be directly attributed to the therapy of the kidney problem. The clinicopathologic findings in 16 temporal bones of eight chronic hemodialysis and renal transplant patients were presented. The five patients treated with 59 or less hemodialyses had no subjective hearing loss; on the other hand, the three patients receiving 264 or more hemodialyses and multiple transplants, complained of hearing and vestibular difficulties. The pathologic findings common to all 14 temporal bones of the seven patients who underwent transplantation were blue stained concretions in the stria vascularis and/or vestibular receptors. The cochlear changes noted ranged from mild loss of outer hair cells and spiral ganglion cells in patients with few hemodialyses and transplants to complete absence of the organ of Corti in patients receiving more than 264 hemodialyses and multiple transplants; thus, the severity of the clinical and histopathological temporal bone findings was directly proportional to the number of hemodialyses and transplants to which the patient had been subjected. This seems to suggest that numerous hemodialyses or recurrent kidney transplants can induce electrolytic, osmotic, biochemical, vascular and/or immunological changes in the inner ear which can lead to severe audioves‐tibular symptoms and pathology.