Study of Diagnostic Biomarkers of Acute Acoustic Trauma

Every year, more than two thousand acute acoustic trauma occur in France, equally between the military and the civilian environment.

Currently, acute acoustic trauma is a pathology with no specific validated treatment, and it is the cause of many handicapping situations. Improving the future of patients requires a better understanding of the neurophysiological mechanisms of noise-induced hearing impairment. They are multiple and pure tone audiometry, the only reference examination, does not allow to differentiate them. Moreover, in the aftermath of acute acoustic trauma, pure tone audiometry tends to improve spontaneously, but this recovery is misleading, as a number of studies in animals have shown that irreversible lesions remain.

The hypothesis of this study is that it is possible to identify new entities, specific to the type of cochlear lesions, in order to clarify the diagnosis of acute acoustic trauma. These entities will be identified by the evaluation of noise-induced hearing impairment via a combination of molecular (proteomic and genomic), physiological and behavioral data. These diagnostic details may then be used to improve prevention or therapy.