Deaf children, adults got heard after “changing life” injection

It is a music for our ears.

Nearly 11 million people in the United States consider themselves deaf or very difficult of hearing.

No medications have been approved for treatment Hereditary hearing lossBut the cochlear is grown, it can help people with deafness to perceive the sound by bypassing the damaged parts of the inner ear and directly stimulating the auditory nerve.

Now, new Genetic therapy The injection that regained hearing in people with mutations in the otoF gene provides new hope.

Researchers injection AAV carries a healthy version of the otoOF in the inner ear of 10 patients between the ages of 1 and 24.

The OotOF is encrypted by the protein otoperlin, which is necessary to transfer sound signals from the ear to the brain.

Without a functional ototop gene, the critical relationship between hair cells in the inner ear and the auditory nerve is disabled.

Participants began to recover hearing in less than a month, with a decrease in the average tangible threshold of 106 dB – the level of grass miracle or a motorcycle – to about 52 dB – the level of regular conversation – within six months.

The youngest participants were better, especially those between the ages of 5 and 8.

In one of the wonderful cases, a girl of approximately 7 years has recovered all her hearing and managed to have a conversation with her mother after only four months of treatment.

“This is a big step forward in the genetic therapy of the deafness, which can be viable for children and adults,” Molly Duan, consultant and Duke in the Department of Clinical Science, Intervention and Technology at the Carolinska Institute in Sweden, Sweden, He said in a statement.

He added: “The smaller studies in China have previously demonstrated positive results in children, but this is the first time that the method has been tested in adolescents and adults as well.”

The treatment has proven well, with the lack of serious side effects reported during the follow -up period from six to 12 months.

The most common reaction was a temporary decrease in PrecursorType of white blood cells.

“Hearing has been greatly improved in many participants, which can have a profound impact on the quality of their lives,” said Duan. “We will follow these patients now to see the effect of the effect.”

Duan noticed that Jane otoF is “just the beginning.”

He added: “We and other researchers expand our work to other more common genes that cause deafness, such as GJB2 and TMC1.”

“This is more complicated by treatment, but animal studies have yet returned to promising results. We are confident that patients with different types of genetic deafness will be able one day to receive treatment.”