Yet another application has been found for acetylsalicylic acid -- that's Aspirin for you and me, commonly used for pain relief and cradiovascular risk management. This time, researchers from the University of Michigan's Kresge Hearing Research Institute found out that Aspirin also prevents antibiotic-induced hearing loss.

The researchers studied 195 patients in China who received 80 to 160 milligrams of gentamicin (a type of aminoglycoside) intravenously twice daily, typically for five to seven days. Of those, 89 patients were given aspirin along with the antibiotic, and 106 were given placebos along with the antibiotic. The results were dramatic: The incidence of hearing loss in the group that was given placebos was 13 percent, while in the aspirin group it was just 3 percent, or 75 percent lower.

Not only does this represent a possible preventive measure against irreversible hearing loss arising from aminoglycoside use, but also potentials in developing sager and novel antibiotics, possibly in combination with aspirin, or aspiring-like compounds. The results of the study above is published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

[Source: UMHS]

About the author: Ruth Schaffer is a Microbiologist by training and currently authors the Allergy and Biotechnology weblogs for Creative Weblogging, and a Asian travel weblog for b5media.. She is a mother to a bi-racial, bilingual, precocious 3-yr old.