Achados audiológicos na criança respiradora oral e sua relação com as etiologias da obstrução da via aérea

Abstract

nasal breathing plays an important role in craniofacial growth and development, however, when performed orally, can cause many damages at the structures and at the functions of the stomatognathic system. Among various consequences of mouth breathing, are episodes of otitis media with effusion, with the resulting hearing loss. It has multiple etiologies, the most common at childhood are hyperplasia of adenoid, hyperplasia of the tonsils and allergic rhinitis. Objectives: to check the relationship between the audiological findings in oral breathing children and the etiologies of upper airway obstruction and to investigate the prevalence of hearing loss in this population. Methods: it's an observational, transversal study, with 178 children aging from two years and six months and twelve years and eleven months, of both genders, mouth breathing, assisted at the Multidisciplinary Reference Center of Mouth Breathing at the Hospital of Federal University of Minas Gerais. All of them underwent at audiometry and impedance tests, by researcher, after the first visit in the Reference Center, and these findings were related to the cause of upper airway obstruction defined by the multidisciplinary team and present the records of the children. Statistical analyzes were performed using SPSS software, using chi-square test for linear trend, Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney test with Bonferroni correction. They were considered statistically significant associations results with a significance level of 5%. Results: there was relationship between the audiological findings in oral breathing children and the etiologies of upper airway obstruction, found statistically significant difference between the number of hearing loss and the number of associated obstructive etiology. It was found hearing loss in 21.9% of the sample. Conclusion: it was observed that there is a high prevalence of hearing loss in oral breathing children studied and the greater is the association of obstructive etiologies of upper airway the greater is the prevalence of hearing loss.