## 3 Results  
A total of 939 patients were admitted to SZMC with a diagnosis of SSNHL during 2012-2022. Of these, 163 were removed from the study cohort by the exclusion criteria, leaving 776 patients for the final study cohort, comprising 386 males and 390 females. Left-ear SSNHL was present in 392 patients, while 384 patients presented with right-ear SSNHL. No significant differences related to demographics, medical background, or accompanying SSNHL symptoms were found among the four groups (Table 1). On average, 9.2 \(\pm\) 8 days elapsed from onset of symptoms to initiation of treatment; 648 (83%) patients presented within the first two weeks (Table 1). Nearly half of the patients (349, 45%) reported no or only mild improvement after one week of oral treatment; they were given intratympan treatment for another week. Significant differences were found between groups in all of the tested audiometry parameters (Table 2). As per earlier, hearing loss saw the worse results. The correlations between the number of days from onset of hearing loss to treatment initiation and the first PTA and SRT results were significant, and weakly positive (R = 0.2, \(p\) < 0.001, and R = 0.17, \(p\) < 0.001, respectively). \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c} \hline
**Weeks** & **1** & **2** & **3** & **4** & \(p\) \\ \hline Number & 454 & 194 & 70 & 58 & \\ First test SRT dB & \(58.5\pm 35\) & \(46.9\pm 3\) & \(38.6\pm 25\) & \(39.6\pm 27\) & \textless{}0.001 \\ First test PTA dB & \(51.9\pm 29\) & \(38.9\pm 25\) & \(37.5\pm 19\) & \(36.6\pm 23\) & \textless{}0.001 \\ First test SD\% & \(53.6\pm 43\) & \(69.5\pm 39\) & \(78.3\pm 32\) & \(76.2\pm 33\) & \textless{}0.001 \\ Relative first SRT dB & \(42.9\pm 34\) & \(30.6\pm 26\) & \(24.9\pm 19\) & \(20.8\pm 23\) & \textless{}0.001 \\ affected ear—healthy ear. & \(37.5\pm 28\) & \(27.3\pm 22\) & \(24.7\pm 24\) & \(18.1\pm 29\) & \textless{}0.001 \\ Relative first SD\% affected ear—healthy ear. & \(40.5\pm 13\) & \(27.3\pm 33\) & \(16.7\pm 38\) & \(21.6\pm 31\) & \textless{}0.001 \\ ear—healthy ear. & & & & & \\ \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 2: Results of first hearing tests for all groups. Mean \(\pm\) SD. \(p\)-value: Kruskal–Wallis or ANOVA, as appropriate. SRT: speech recognition threshold, dB: decibels, PTA: pure-tone average, SD: speech discrimination. On average, the first hearing tests for groups 1 and 2 were performed 4.5 \(\pm\) 2 and 12.4 \(\pm\) 2 days after onset of hearing loss, respectively. At the completion of treatment, the last hearing tests were performed 17.2 \(\pm\) 4 (group 1) and 24.6 \(\pm\) 4 (group 2) days after onset of hearing loss. The first hearing tests of groups 3 and 4 were carried out 19.4 \(\pm\) 3 and 25.2 \(\pm\) 3 days after onset of hearing loss, respectively (Figure 1). No significant difference was found in the number of days of hearing loss between the first hearing test performed on groups 3 and 4 and the last hearing test performed on groups 1 and 2, respectively (\(p=0.32\), \(p=0.13\)). Likewise, no significant absolute or relative difference in pure-tone audiometry results was found between the last hearing test of groups 1 and 2 and the first hearing of groups 3 and 4 (Figure 2: group 1 vs. group 3; Figure 3: group 2 vs. group 4), at the frequencies tested although a continuous trend of better results for groups 1 and 2 (4 dB on average) was observed. No significant differences were found in the absolute or relative audiometry parameters (SRT, PTA, and SD) of groups 1 and 2 at the end of treatment and of groups 3 and 4 before treatment, respectively (Table 3). Furthermore, no significant differences in absolute or relative SRT, PTA, or SD were found at the end of the treatment (Table 4). In other words, all groups demonstrated the same hearing results, on average, regardless of the period that elapsed between symptom onset and initiation of treatment. Figure 1: Timeline for the start and end of treatment in days (on average) for all groups regarding hearing loss.