Drugs that Cure Hearing Loss
Several efforts are underway to develop drugs that can prevent or
treat various types of hearing loss. We've been following some of these
efforts rather closely and will continue to bring you news of these
efforts as it becomes available.
American BioHealth
Auris Medical
Sound Pharmaceuticals
Here are additional stories about drugs that may cure or prevent
hearing loss:
September 2011 - Otonomy Study Shows Promise in
Treatment of Meniere's Disease
June 2011 - Companies Work to Develop Potential
Treatments for Hearing Loss
April 2011 - Positive Results in Phase 1b Study Drug
to Treat Meniere's Disease
February 2011 - Otonomy's
OTO-104 Demonstrates Hearing Loss Protection and Hearing Recovery in
Preclinical Studies
Sept 2010 - Breakthrough Towards
Drug for Hearing Loss
July 2010 - Study uncovers potential drug treatment for
noise-induced hearing loss
May 2010 - Otonomy Demonstrates Sustained Release Drug
Delivery to Inner Ear
July 2009 - Implanted Pump May Assist Hearing Loss
Treatment
June 2008 -
Chemical Combo May Prevent Hearing Loss
October 2007 - Premier Micronutrient Corporation (PMC)
Releases Hearing Health Supplement to Address Multiple Conditions
June 2007 -
Evidence lacking to guide
treatment for sudden hearing loss
April 2007 - Antioxidants: An Antidote for
Noise-Induced Hearing Loss?
March 2007 - Anti-epileptic drugs may help prevent
and treat noise-induced hearing loss
March 2007 - Genetic hearing loss may be reversible
without gene therapy
More on this and related
topics
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
December 2010
A new treatment has been developed for sudden
sensorineural hearing loss (SSHL), a condition that causes deafness in an
estimated 40,000 Americans each year, usually in early middle-age.
Researchers from Kyoto University writing in the open access journal BMC
Medicine describe the positive results of a preliminary trial of
insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF1), applied as a topical gel. Takayuki
Nakagawa, MD, PhD, of the Department of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck
Surgery of Kyoto University Hospital and a team of researchers tested the
gel in 25 patients whose SSHL had not responded to the normal treatment of
systemic gluticosteroids. "The results indicated that the topical IGF1
application using gelatin hydrogels was safe, and had equivalent or
superior efficiency to the hyperbaric oxygen therapy that was used as a
historical control," Nakagawa said. "This suggests that the efficacy of
topical IGF1 application should be further evaluated using randomized
clinical trials."
Full Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
July 2010
A device being developed at Draper Laboratory in
Cambridge, MA, can deliver drugs in a controlled and timed manner to the
inner ear. In combination with novel therapies capable of halting or
repairing damage to the cells in the inner ear, the device could provide a
more effective way to treat hearing loss.
Full Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
January 2010
A drug to cure hearing loss? It is not yet available in your local
drugstore, but scientists are optimistic about what the future holds. More
than 36 million Americans have hearing impairment due to aging, disease,
ototoxic drugs, noise and genetics, and the number is increasing each
year, according to the Hearing Loss Association of America. And the
increase is not all due to aging baby boomers anyone can suffer permanent
hearing damage from excessive and repeated exposure to loud noise. Upwards
of 30 million people in the United States regularly face dangerous levels
of noise at work, in such industries as construction, mining, agriculture,
aviation, manufacturing and transportation. In fact, hearing loss is among
the most common forms of disability among military veterans, according to
the 2005 Institute of Medicine's report, Noise and Military Service:
Implications for Hearing Loss and Tinnitus.
Full Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
September 2009
Last year, Edith Garrett could no longer hear her
mother's voice or the sound of a dog barking. She was 22. Four years
earlier, Garrett learned she had neurofibromatosis type 2 (NF2), a
condition characterized by tumors in the nervous system. The benign
tumors, acoustic neuromas, damaged the eighth cranial nerve in one ear.
The result: increasing hearing loss with no prospect of a cure. Having
already lost 92 percent of her hearing, the college student from Atlanta
signed on for an experimental treatment -- a drug therapy federally
approved to inhibit the formation of new blood vessels that feed tumors.
The treatment involved infusions of bevacizumab, a drug marketed as
Avastin that is sometimes used to treat advanced cancers. Dr. Scott
Plotkin, a neuro-oncologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston,
who led the trial, was looking for a medical option for his NF2 patients
with acoustic neuromas. Not only do the tumors threaten hearing loss, but
so can the current therapies, surgery and localized radiation.
Full Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
July 2009
Treatment with the angiogenesis inhibitor
bevacizumab (Avastin) reportedly improved hearing and alleviated other
symptoms in patients with neurofibromatosis type 2 (NF2). In a paper to
appear in the July 23 New England Journal of Medicine, researchers from
Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) report that bevacizumab treatment
successfully shrank characteristic tumors in a small group of NF2
patients, the first reported successful NF2 treatment not involving
surgery or radiation.
Full Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
April 2009
In the last five to 10 years, there has been a
steadily growing interest in developing drugs to prevent noise-induced
hearing loss (NIHL). This drug development research is based on two
fundamental discoveries related to cochlear pathology caused by noise
exposure. The first is the realization that death of the cochlear sensory
cells following a noise exposure is not random, but rather occurs in a
predictable pattern of programmed cell death called apoptosis (Figure 1).
In apoptotic cell death, the cell disassembles itself, the nucleus becomes
smaller, and the cell membrane remains intact. The second finding is that
exposure to noise triggers the death of sensory cells by producing a
large, persistent increase in toxic reactive oxygen species (ROS) in the
cochlea.
Full Story
