Following a previous paper in which we documented the otological side effects of drug therapy, we here review other drug side effects that ENT surgeons may encounter when dealing with patients. Although otological drug side effects such as hearing loss and tinnitus are well recognized there are many rhinological, laryngeal, oropharyngeal and other head and neck drug side effects. Our data were sourced from the British National Formulary and Electronic Medical Compendium websites.

Otolaryngologic symptoms are common and patients presenting to the otolaryngologist will often be taking drugs for the treatment of unrelated diseases. As a doctor, one must not forget the potential of these drugs to cause otologic side effects and, in some cases, to be the cause of the presenting symptom.

We performed a comprehensive search of the British National Formulary and Electronic Medical Compendium websites to classify the otologic side effects caused by drugs. Not all the data were found at both websites. We have compiled all the data together, subclassified them and produced a review of the otologic side effects of drugs, in table form.

Testing of otoacoustic emissions (OAE) has been successfully applied to study outer hair cell function. We used this methodology to evaluate and compare the effect of topically applied normal saline, and gentamicin- and ciprofloxacin-containing drops into the middle ear of guinea pigs. All three solutions similarly decreased the distortion product OAE (DPOAE) and all three caused an inflammatory reaction in the guinea pig’s middle-ear. OAE failed to detect adequately the ototoxicity of topically administered drops in this animal model because the opening of the bulla affected DPOAE, and both inflamed middle-ear mucosa and osteoneogenesis caused a decrease in DPOAE amplitude.

This is the first report examining the influence of topically used otic drops on inner ear function as demonstrated by OAE.