Add the Inner Ear to COVlD-19's Victims List.

• Position: OTOLARYNGOLOGY

Early into the pandemic, Konstantina Stankovic, an inner ear researcher and otolaryngologist, was surprised when she began seeing patients in her Massachusetts clinic exposed to COVID-19 complaining of hearing loss, ringing in the ears known as tinnitus, and dizziness, which often starts in the inner ear.

Sure, everyone had heard about other odd sensory side effects, such as loss of taste and smell, because of the disease, but hearing toss? That was not even on most people's radar. Now, after months of research that culminated in the publication of a study in Communications Medicine that links the coronavirus with hearing and balance disorders, Stankovic believes these symptoms should be on everybody's radar.

Our study showed evidence that the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 can directly infect the inner ear. During the peak of the pandemic, when patients were having more life-threatening complications, they weren't paying much attention to whether their hearing was reduced or whether they had vertigo. It was easy to dismiss these symptoms as just being a coincidence, and routine testing for SARS-CoV-2 was not yet available.

Stankovic recommends that hearing tests be routine for anyone diagnosed with COVID-19--or, if a patient presents with new-onset hearing loss, tinnitus, or vertigo, and has had any exposure to the virus, they should be tested and monitored for worsening symptoms by their health care provider.

Other researchers have begun to explore the possible connection between the coronavirus and hearing loss, but no one knows for sure how widespread the problem is.

Stankovic recently joined the Stanford...