Epidemiology of Non-syndromic Dominant Deafness

Hearing Impairment

Autosomal dominant inheritance, Mutation, Prevalence

Hearing impairment is a common disorder that affects at least 7% of individuals in our countries. Even the causes of hearing impairment are numerous, genetic causes represent the main factor of sensorineural deafness. Among hereditary non-syndromic deafness autosomal-dominant inheritance is observed in about 10-20% of the cases. These forms of deafness are usually post-lingual and progressive. To date more than 41 chromosomal localisation and 21 genes associated to non syndromic dominant deafness have been described. It represents an extreme genetic heterogeneity making difficult the studies of these forms of hearing impairment. But, genetic diagnostic testing is crucial in these cases. Indeed, therapeutic research are in the way to prevent the progression of the disorder. The aim of this work is to establish the prevalence of the different genes involved in these forms of deafness.

The protocol consists first in the recruitment of 150 families with non syndromic dominant hearing impairment. The families will be recruited by the clinical investigators. The clinic and radiological characteristics of the hearing impairment will be collected by the clinical investigators. Samples of patients and healthy relatives will be sent to the referral center. A linkage study of the whole genome by SNP studies is in progress in a cohort of large families affected by autosomal dominant deafness. This work will enable us to select the loci that may be frequently implicated in our population and screen these genes in the 150 families included in the protocol.

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