[Sudden deafness: the audiometric profile (author's transl)].

34 cases of unilateral idiopathic sudden deafness were subjected to an intensive audiometrical examination programme. The average hearing loss in percent (calculated on the basis of the pure tone audiogram according to D. Röser, 1973) amounted to 71.6% prior to treatment, the average sound audiogram corresponding to a pantonal hearing defect. The percent gain in audition due to the treatment averaged 24.3%. The pretherapy hearing defect is greater in older patients, and therapy is much less successful in older than in younger patients. If treatment is started within 7 days, it is considerably more successful than in those cases where it is started a long time after the beginning of the disease. This, however, is no proof of the effectiveness of early treatment, but might also be due to the high rate of spontaneous remissions. The final stage of healing or partial recovery is reached, on the average, 20 days after the onset of the illness. In nearly all patients a recruitment was proved to exist; this means that most cases were cochlear hearing defects. The results are compared with the statements contained in medical literature, and an attempt is made to interpret diverging results.