Conditions: Hearing Loss, Sudden
Allocation: NA | Intervention model: SINGLE_GROUP
Enrollment: 2
Healthy volunteers: no

Brief summary:
The purpose of this study is to determine if anakinra (an interleukin-1 receptor antagonist) can improve hearing thresholds in patients with sudden sensorineural hearing loss that did not respond to oral steroid therapy. The patients to be enrolled will have recently completed a course of oral steroids and demonstrated no change in their audiometric thresholds following corticosteroid therapy.

The investigators will be measuring hearing thresholds (Pure tone average and word recognition scores) before and after anakinra and correlating these findings with circulating IL-1 levels in the patient's blood.

Detailed description:
For patients that experience an acute, sensorineural decline in hearing, timely corticosteroid administration may result in preservation of some or all of the hearing. For patients with sudden sensorineural hearing loss who have failed to respond to corticosteroid therapy, this study will be offered to determine if anakinra is a safe and effective alternative therapy for clinical hearing restoration. The investigators have previously demonstrated that IL-1beta inhibition (with anakinra) in a small cohort of patients with steroid resistant autoimmune inner ear disease was effective in demonstrating audiological improvements.

Arms:
arm 1: 100mg of Anakinra administered as a daily subcutaneous injection

Interventions: intervention 1: anakinra
Intervention descriptions: intervention 1: 100mg of anakinra adminstered by a subcutaneous injection for a minimum of 28 days, retreatment with additional 28 day cycle based on clinical response

Protocol document: