In this project, Dr Emma Kenyon seeks to understand the extent to which drug-induced hearing loss impacts the population of the UK, and to identify medications which can damage hearing that are not currently considered to cause hearing loss.
Project start date: March 2025
Project end date: March 2026
About the project
The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that around 50 percent of all new cases of hearing loss each year could be prevented. A substantial amount of these cases is caused by disease-treating medicines that can damage hearing as a side effect. However, it is difficult to assess the real incidence of disease-related hearing loss for any given country due to a lack of data.
In this project, the researchers will use the Secure Anonymised Information Linkage (SAIL) Databank, a repository of health records from 30 years of routinely collected data about the population of Wales, to evaluate the impact of drug-induced hearing loss.
How it works
Anonymised SAIL data will be sorted for relevant information, such as records of people with hearing loss and people who have taken medication known to damage hearing. These records will be compared to identify if people have developed hearing loss related to the medication they have taken.
The team will also compare records of people with symptoms that resemble drug‑induced hearing loss to see whether any have been taking medications not currently described as harmful to hearing.
How will this research help people at risk of hearing loss?
If successful, the researchers will scale up this work to include people with drug-induced tinnitus and balance disorders. They will also test any medication they identify as being potentially harmful to hearing in the lab to confirm if they do indeed cause hearing loss.
These findings could be used to inform policy around how these drugs are prescribed and provide data on the types of medication that result in hearing loss to scientists developing new drugs.
About the researcher
Doctor Emma Kenyon is a Lecturer at Swansea University.
This project is the first step in identifying the extent to which ototoxic drugs contribute to preventable hearing loss, tinnitus and balance disorders in the UK.
If successful our results can inform policy on how these drugs are prescribed and to provide data on other potential ototoxic drugs that can help to predict ototoxic side effects in drugs in development in the future.”
