Cisplatin chemotherapy is used to treat a wide range of cancers, including testicular, ovarian, cervical, breast, bladder, esophageal, lung, and head & neck. However, cisplatin chemotherapy for certain cancers is often associated with hearing loss. Sodium thiosulfate, in combination with cisplatin chemotherapy, is known to reduce the risk of hearing loss. The objective of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of the protection properties of sodium thiosulfate in preventing hearing loss when given in combination with cisplatin chemotherapy.
This is a randomized study conducted on a total of 109 children aged 0-18 years of age at standard-risk hepatoblastoma. The participants were randomly assigned to receive cisplatin alone (80 mg per sq. mt. of the body SA) or cisplatin plus sodium thiosulfate (20 mg sq. mt. of BSA). The primary outcome of the study was the absolute hearing threshold measured by pure-tone audiometry.
Sodium thiosulfate was associated with few high-grade toxic effects compared to cisplatin alone. When the absolute hearing threshold was assessed in 101 children, grade-1 or higher loss occurred in 18 of 55 children (33%) receiving cisplatin–sodium thiosulfate therapy, compared with 29 of 46 (63%) for the cisplatin-alone group.
The research concluded that cisplatin–sodium thiosulfate was associated with a lower risk of hearing loss than in cisplatin-alone therapy.
Ref: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1801109
