Avaliação audiomética em pacientes tratados de meningite por Cryptococcus gattii

Abstract

This study shows the audiometric evaluation, composed by tonal audiometry and imitanciometry, in patients treated for Cryptococcus gattii meningitis. It was analyzed six patients with proven Cryptococcus gattii central nervous system infection, interned in the Hospital Universitário João de Barros Barreto, Belém, PA, Brazil, between January of 2000 and November of 2007, for antifungal treatment. The age of the analyzed patients ranged from 12 to 37 years-old. Three were men and three women. All of them originating from neighboring cities, nobody from the capital, Belém. The most common clinical findings were headache and vomiting, present in all the patients; fever and nuchal rigidity, each one absent in only one patient, not coincidents. The time of illness until the diagnosis varied from 3 to 8 weeks. Of the three evaluated men, hearing loss was presenting in two. In one of them deafness was moderate and unilateral and in the other it was bilateral and not symmetrical. Of the three women, only one presented hearing impairment. In this patient, occurred just a mild alteration in an isolated frequency, of 4.000 Hz. It is described audiometric findings in a relate of cases of patients treated for meningeal neurocryptococcosis due to Cryptococcus gattii.