Comparative Effectiveness of Corticosteroid Therapies for Sudden Hearing Loss, 2012-2019

A retrospective cohort study of 284 adults with idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss (SSNHL) from 2012 to 2019, conducted by Li Guo. The data compares initial systemic versus intratympanic corticosteroid therapy, analyzing outcomes like pure-tone average (PTA) gain and recovery rates using a causal inference framework.

Use Cases

• Benchmark causal inference methods based on propensity score weighting and matching techniques described.
• Analyze treatment effect heterogeneity for sudden hearing loss based on baseline covariates like age, symptom profile, and comorbidities.
• Model short-term hearing improvement outcomes like PTA gain and complete recovery probability.
• Study real-world treatment patterns and confounding adjustment in observational clinical data.

Strengths

• Employs a prespecified causal inference framework with doubly robust analysis (AIPW).
• Includes 284 patient records with complete baseline and discharge audiometry.
• Provides specific outcome measures: PTA gain, complete recovery (≥30 dB), and effective improvement (≥15 dB).
• Uses multiple sensitivity analyses (IPTW, overlap-weighted, matched) showing consistent directional results.

Limitations

• Row count and column-level documentation are absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Data is from a single-center cohort, which may limit generalizability.
• The dataset is very small at 251.4 KB, indicating limited scope.

Provenance

Source

Li Guo via figshare.

Collection Method

Retrospective cohort study.

Time Range

2012–2019

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-15 04:21:59; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Single-center location, not specified.