%0 Journal Article
%T Association between COVID-19 and sensorineural hearing loss: Evidence from a Mendelian randomization study in European and East Asian population.
%A Wang F
%A Yin Q
%A Zhu L
%J Immun Inflamm Dis
%V 11
%N 12
%D 2023 Dec
%M 38156388
%F 2.493
%R 10.1002/iid3.1108
%X <B>BACKGROUND: </B>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.<BR><B>METHODS: </B>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.<BR><B>RESULTS: </B>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.<BR><B>CONCLUSIONS: </B>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.