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← Return to FREE Hearing Loss online conference continues today June 18-19
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FREE Hearing Loss online conference continues today June 18-19
Hearing Loss | Last Active: Jun 19, 2020 | Replies (12)Comment receiving replies
@tonyinmi
Hi,
I learned on Thursday that people with Cochlear implants are not candidates for the injections. Also it is only for people with acquired sensorineural hearing loss which they estimate is 90% of the population with hearing loss. The ear has to be healthy...no damage to the tympanic membrane. There are a lot of considerations as to how the fluid in the inner ear would interact with the fluid in the injection, whether a person has Menieres, what other drugs a patient is taking etc.
This is probably 5 to 10 years in the future and the clinical trials are for 18 to 65 year olds right now which are a lot of people with this hearing loss. If you have a CI in one ear you could inject the other ear. More considerations as to whether the injection is a one shot deal or a series or is ongoing.
What they basically found was that in the cochlea there are progenitor hair cells right next to the hair cells that receive sounds. In all mammals except humans, these progenitor cells send a signal to the deteriorated hair cells to regenerate. In humans, the progenitor cells act only as support for the other cells. This drug seems successful in generating a signal to wake up the other cells. They are doing double blind trials and have not experienced the placebo effect of some clinical trials in general. You can’t think you hear better if you didn’t get the drug. Your word recognition is tested and people who received the drug had improvement. Not sure how much. I got most of the info from the Q&A session afterwards.
@lioness
I get eye injections...my eye is numbed lol. I guess they would numb the ear. I would be the first in line for a clinical trial if I could.
What a major breakthrough this is.
FL Mary
Replies to "@tonyinmi Hi, I learned on Thursday that people with Cochlear implants are not candidates for the..."
@imallears, I did watch the presentation on hair regeneration. It was interesting. I was probably one of several that asked about the target audience for who would benefit from this therapy. It was a bit disappointing knowing that their targeting those with age related loss. My loss is hereditary but my hearing continues to get worse as I age so there may still be hope. In my case, genetic stem cell research may be my best hope for a cure.
Tony in Michigan
@imallers This is a major breakthrough for those who need it . Im thankful my M.D. doesnt require the injection . Take care
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Thank you for this terrific review of the information provided here. The presentation was fascinating. Until 1988 when the National Institutes of Health established the National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), very little research was being done in this area. The prevailing attitude was that the ear & hearing organs were inaccessible due to placement in the brain. Sensorineural hearing loss was called 'nerve deafness', and it was assumed that the auditory nerve was dead. Lo and behold, it wasn't dead in the majority of cases. It was not being stimulated due to the failure of hair cells in the cochlea. Enter cochlear implants that have been able to bypass the cochlea and stimulate the auditory nerve and get sound signals to the auditory center of the brain for interpretation. Anything is possible. So thankful this kind of research is being done now.
I hope the presentation on tinnitus will be just as enlightening and hopeful.