Dr. Konstantina Stankovic

It's for Rye syndrome.

It's not common.

And that's different.

It's not specifically for hearing loss.

However, in addition to these anti-inflammatory medications, there are others.

There are certain antibiotics that have increased risk of causing hearing loss like gentamicin.

There are certain diuretics like furosemide that causes hearing loss.

There are drugs that are used to treat erectile dysfunction that can cause sudden hearing loss.

Most of the time that's reversible if people stop taking them.

So what I'm saying is that there is, as always, genetic predisposition and then the environment.

And the environment can include what we take, what we eat, what our lifestyle is, what noise levels we're exposed to, what drugs we take, and all of that impacts our genetic predisposition.

So, for example, heavy metals are known to be toxic to neurons in the ear as well as other neurons.

Lead, mercury.

We talked about drugs.

So, for example...

platinum-containing compounds, which are typically used to treat cancer, are toxic to the ear and auditory neurons in addition to other neurons throughout the body.

In terms of other environmental pollutants that are now gaining more and more interest, it's plastic.

Micro and nanoplastics, they are everywhere.

Long-term effects of that are unknown.

We have performed a study where we exposed sensory hair cells to micro and nanoplastics.