Evolution of incidence of audiovestibular disorders during the pandemic COVID-19 period.

The annual new cases at our clinic comprised overall 2107, 1997, 1984, 2068, and 1829 from 2016 to 2020, respectively, and the respectively annual cases of SSHL were 54, 46, 42, 45 and 38. Accordingly, annual incidences of SSHL in relation to overall cases of audiovestibular disorders were 2.6%, 2.3%, 2.1%, 2.2% and 2.1% from 2016 to 2020, respectively, exhibiting a non-significant difference (p > 0.05). In contrast, incidence of autonomic dysfunction in the year 2020 was 15.3%, which revealed significantly higher than 8.5-13.1% from 2016 to 2019 (p < 0.001). Restated, the incidence of autonomic dysfunction in 2020 displayed a significantly higher percentage than the other 4 years. Conversely, the incidence of MD in 2020 was 9.8%, showing a significant decline compared with the other 4 years (12.6-15.6% from 2016 to 2019, p < 0.001), CONCLUSION: Evolution of incidence of audiovestibular disorders during the pandemic COVID-19 period revealed increase in the incidence of autonomic dysfunction and decrease in that of MD, while incidence of SSHL remained unchanged from 2016 to 2020. Thus, the SARS-CoV-2 may less affect the audiovestibular system.