Comprehensive association analysis of speech recognition thresholds after cisplatin‐based chemotherapy in survivors of adult‐onset cancer

Abstract Purpose Deficits in speech understanding constitute one of the most severe consequences of hearing loss. Here we investigate the clinical and genetic risk factors for symmetric deterioration of speech recognition thresholds (SRT) among cancer survivors treated with cisplatin. Methods SRT was measured using spondaic words and calculating the mean of measurements for both ears with symmetric SRT values. For clinical associations, SRT‐based hearing disability (SHD) was defined as SRT≥15 dB hearing loss and clinical variables were derived from the study dataset. Genotyped blood samples were used for GWAS with rank‐based inverse normal transformed SRT values as the response variable. Age was used as a covariate in association analyses. Results SHD was inversely associated with self‐reported health (p = 0.004). Current smoking (p = 0.002), years of smoking (p = 0.02), BMI (p