Objective To analyze the clinical characteristics and prognosis of patients with sudden sensorineural hearing loss (SSNHL) and diabetes mellitus (DM).MethodsThe clinical data of 292 SSNHL patients were retrospectively analyzed. According to the SSNHL patients with and without diabetes mellitus, the 292 patients were divided into diabetic group (DM group, 53 cases) and nondiabetic group(nonDM group, 239 cases). The clinical characteristics was analyzed comparatively between the two groups, including the gender, age, side, course of disease, rate of tinnitus and vertigo, degree of hearing loss, audiogram configuration and recovery of the hearing function.ResultsThere was no significant difference between 2 groups in terms of the gender, age, side, course of disease,incidence of tinnitus and vertigo (P>0.05). In the DM group, the degree of hearing loss was mainly severetoprofound (75.47%), the incidence of the hearing curve was mainly total deafness (50.94%), which was significantly higher than that in the nonDM group (48.96% and 30.54%), and the difference was statistically significant (P< 0.05). In the DM group, the overall recovery rate, complete recovery rate and marked recovery rate were 43.40%、7.55% and 11.32%, respectively, which were all lower than that(76.15%、20.92% and 25.94%,P<0.05 ) in the nonDM group, and the differences were statistically significant (P< 0.05).ConclusionSSNHL patients with DM suffered a serve hearing loss, and the most audiograms were total deafness, the hearing prognosis was poor.