Association between COVID‐19 and sensorineural hearing loss: Evidence from a Mendelian randomization study in European and East Asian population

Abstract

Abstract Background Long coronavirus disease (COVID), characterized by persistent and sometimes debilitating symptoms following a severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2) infection, has garnered increasing attention as a potential public health crisis. Emerging evidence indicates a higher incidence of hearing loss in individuals who have had COVID 2019 (COVID‐19) compared to the general population. However, the conclusions were inconsistent, and the causal relationship between COVID‐19 and sensorineural hearing loss remains unknown. Methods To addresses this outstanding issue, we performed Mendelian randomization analysis to detect the causal association between COVID‐19 and hearing loss using the largest genome‐wide association study data to date in the European population and confirmed the results in the East Asian population. Comprehensively sensitive analyses were followed, including Cochran's Q test, Mendelian randomization (MR)‐Egger intercept test, MR‐pleiotropy residual sum and outlier, and leave‐one‐out analysis, to validate the robustness of our results. Results Our results suggested that there is no causal association between COVID‐19 and the risk of hearing loss in the European population. Neither the susceptibility, hospitalization, and severity of COVID‐19 on hearing loss (inverse variance weighted method: odds ratio (OR) = 1.046, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.907–1.205, p = .537; OR = 0.995, 95% CI = 0.956–1.036, p = .823; OR = 0.995, 95% CI = 0.967–1.025, p = .76). Replicated analyses in the East Asian population yielded consistent results. No pleiotropy and heterogeneity were found in our results. Conclusion In conclusion, our MR results do not support a genetically predicted causal relationship between COVID‐19 and sensorineural hearing loss. Thus, the associations observed in prior observational studies may have been influenced by confounding factors rather than a direct cause‐and‐effect relationship. More clinical and mechanism research are needed to further understand this association in the future.

Keywords

• causal effect
• long COVID‐19
• Mendelian randomization study
• severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2
• sensorineural hearing loss