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The therapeutic effect of thymoquinone on acoustic trauma-induced hearing loss in rats

  • Otology
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A Letter to the Editor to this article was published on 13 March 2017

Abstract

Thymoquinone has antioxidant properties. We hypothesized that thymoquinone may prevent or alleviate hearing loss induced by acoustic trauma. We aimed to study thymoquinone’s effect on hearing function with distortion-product otoacoustic emissions and auditory brainstem response. Thirty adult Spraque Dawley rats were randomized into four groups following exposure to acoustic trauma for 4 h. Control group (n = 7) did not receive further treatment. Thymoquinone-20 (n = 8) and Thymoquinone-40 (n = 8) received 20 and 40 mg/kg of intraperitoneal thymoquinone, respectively. Corn-oil group (n = 7) received 1 ml of corn oil intraperitoneally. Hearing function of both ears was tested with distortion-product otoacoustic emission and auditory brainstem response before, and shortly after acoustic trauma, and 96 h following acoustic trauma. Post-trauma signal/noise ratios and wave V amplitude/latencies of all groups were significantly low compared with pre-trauma values, which indicate no preventive effect of thymoquinone. Rats in Thymoquinone-20 showed a significantly improved distortion-product otoacoustic emission and auditory brainstem response results at 4000 frequency and above in post-treatment tests (p < 0.05). Improvement in Thymoquinone-40 at the same frequencies was insignificantly inferior to Thymoquinone-20, yet superior to control and corn-oil groups (p < 0.05). We conclude that thymoquinone may not prevent acoustic trauma-induced hearing loss, however, at 20 mg/kg for 96 h, may repair the damage.

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Author notes

  1. Ozlem Celebi Erdivanli

    Present address: İslampaşa mahallesi, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Üniversitesi Tıp Fakültesi Eğitim ve Araştırma Hastanesi, Kulak Burun Boğaz Anabilim Dalı, 53100, Rize, Türkiye

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Recep Tayyip Erdogan University Medical Faculty, Rize, Turkey

    Mahmut Ogurlu, Ozlem Celebi Erdivanli, Abdulkadir Ozgur, Zerrin Ozergin Coskun, Suat Terzi, Munir Demirci & Engin Dursun

  2. Department of Histology and Embryology, Recep Tayyip Erdogan University Medical Faculty, Rize, Turkey

    Levent Tumkaya

Authors
  1. Mahmut Ogurlu
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  2. Ozlem Celebi Erdivanli
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Correspondence to Ozlem Celebi Erdivanli.

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The study was performed in accordance with the 2011 Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals.

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Ogurlu, M., Celebi Erdivanli, O., Tumkaya, L. et al. The therapeutic effect of thymoquinone on acoustic trauma-induced hearing loss in rats. Eur Arch Otorhinolaryngol 274, 743–749 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00405-016-4319-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00405-016-4319-4

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