Conductive Hearing Loss Imaging Provides Physicians with Answers

Dr. Gul Moonis serves as an attending staff radiologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts. She specializes in imaging diagnosis of patients with brain cancer and multiple sclerosis etc. Gul Moonis, MD, also focuses on a subspecialty in diagnostic radiology (head and neck radiology) and presents numerous presentations on medical topics, including the use of imaging in cases of conductive hearing loss.

There are numerous types and causes of hearing loss as well as treatment options. A physician might determine that a patient has conductive hearing loss and order a temporal bone computed tomography (CT) to figure out why. The scan might demonstrate that the patient has longstanding ear inflammation, for which the physician may recommend surgery. Conductive hearing loss occurs when sound waves cannot reach the nerves within the inner ear.

According to the American Society of Neurology (ASN), after a physician examines and learns the patient’s history, he or she can decide upon a customized way to proceed. The patient may listen to tones through a headset or undergo radiological tests, such as a CT scan. Upon examining the results, the physician can often treat conductive hearing loss by eliminating excess wax buildup, removing fluid found in the ear after an ear infection, treating a hole in the eardrum, or removing a foreign object stuck in the ear canal.