[Genetic study of sensorineural hearing loss].

Genealogical and genetico-statistical analysis of 639 Moscow families with 696 children suffering from sensorineural deafness was carried out. The patients examined constituted 40% of all the registered cases of hearing loss in children under 16. The study showed that monosymptomatic sensorineural deafness in children was more often of a genetic (62,2%), than of an exogenous (37,8%) origin. 54,2% of children with the disease were born from normal parents and 50,9% of all sporadic cases of sensorineural deafness were caused by genetic factors. In 80,8% of cases, inherited sensorineural hearing loss was transmitted, as an autosomal recessive trait, in 18% - as an autosomal dominant trait and in 1,2% - as a recessive X-linked character. The incidence of recessive sensorineural deafness in children of moscow is 1: 2000, that of dominant hearing loss being 1: 10 000. The total frequency of recessive genes is 0,022; the total frequency of heterozygotes of recessive genes is 0,043.