Effects of cigarette smoking on sensorineural hearing impairment and age related macular degeneration

INTRODUCTIONCigarette smoking has been causally associated with various diseases, and among the numerous harmful effects of smoking is included its impact on the senses of vision and hearing. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact of cigarette smoking on the visual and auditory functions. METHODSIn this analytic study, hearing and smoking status of 40 patients with agerelated macular degeneration (AMD) were analyzed with 40 age-matched control subjects without AMD. In all subjects (n=80), retinal status was investigated by optical coherence tomography (OCT), with analyses of thickness central subfield (TCS) and thickness average cube (TAC) of the macula. All participants were examined with pure tone audiometry. Audiometric trials comprised pure tone bone and air conduction. The smoking history of all the subjects was recorded in detail. RESULTSA significant correlation was found between smoking status and visual (p