Premature babies on antibiotics are at risk of becoming deaf

February 5, 2009 by Baby Chums  
Filed under: Baby Health, News

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Genetic researchers at the Institute of Child Health in London revealed a report claiming that antibiotics used to treat infections in premature babies put them at a high risk of turning deaf.

The prime antibiotic in focus is aminoglycosides. Aminoglycosides, categorised as “broad spectrum” drugs, are powerful antibiotics used to treat infections in premature babies. These antiobiotics are widely used because they are effective and cheap.

Published in the ‘New England Journal of Medicine’, the study warns that children with an inherited sensitivity to very potent antibiotics might leave them with a lifelong and irreversible hearing disability. This sensitivity can be blamed on genetic mutations found in some individuals.

Infections in children with cancer and other chronic medical conditions including tuberculosis, septicemia, complicated urinary tract infections and cystic fibrosis are usually treated with these sets of antibiotics, which are used for adults as well.

This category of extremely powerful antibiotics is known to cause permanent damage to the ear (otoxicity) and hearing ability.

Aminoglycosides cannot be prescribed by a GP and is used widely in premature baby units in hospitals. It is administered with the help of injection in patients. Researchers agree that if some families are carrying this mutation, they may experience hearing loss even when they are not exposed to aminoglycosides.

The researchers studied blood samples of more than 9,000 children. They observed that one in every 500 children had a genetic mutation called m.1555A-G mutation, which had made them more susceptible to the aminoglycosides causing deafness.

Research Lead Maria Bitner-Glindzicz, a consultant geneticist said, “All (the affected children) are permanently deaf. It is possible there are more children with a lesser degree of hearing loss who have not come to the notice of doctors. Adults can also be affected. If you have this mutation and get this class of antibiotics, they have this rapid and extreme effect.”

Bitner-Glindzicz and her colleagues explained that children must be screened beforehand to detect the mutation before injecting aminoglycosides. However, they agree that in emergency cases patient might have to be given antibiotics immediately.

“Waiting for a gene test may sometimes not be clinically right, particularly on neonatal units. Universal pre-natal testing of mothers should be considered for this reason,” said Bitner-Glindzicz.

“It was known a side effect was hearing loss, but if doctors found a case of hearing loss in a premature baby, they tended to ascribe it to prematurity or that the dose of antibiotics was too high,” she quoted. “Now we have established it is to do with genetic susceptibility, and it affects one in 500 babies.”

According to Bitner-Glindzicz, screening pregnant women for this mutation is very essential to protect children from such risks and these tests must be made mandatory. Almost 20,000 babies are treated with aminoglycosides every year.

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