IntroductionElderly health has incr

IntroductionElderly health has increasingly aroused the interest ofresearchers, as the population in both developed and devel-oping countries is aging.1It is estimated that by 2040developing countries will have a billion people aged 60 yearsor older.2Given the rapidity and magnitude of this increase,care for this specific group is essential, so they can age ingood health and with good quality of life.3The most common types of hearing loss are presbycusis(due to aging) and noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL).4NIHLis due to continued exposure to loud noise levels, resultingin gradual loss of auditory acuity and is usually bilateral,symmetric, sensorineural and irreversible. It usually affectsthe high audiometric frequencies of 3000---6000 Hz.5Theetiology of hearing loss also has genetic components, inaddition to environmental ones, and more recently, innerear inflammatory response induction and up-regulation ofproinflammatory cytokines were evaluated in the presenceof exacerbated noise.5---7Several researchers have reportedthe presence of inflammatory cells in the steady state andtheir increase after lesions in the inner ear.6,8---10Noise exposure induces the expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines, including tumor necrosis factor-(TNF-), interleukin 1 (IL-1) and interleukin-6 (IL-6).11So et al.12observed a transient up-regulation of IL-6 incisplatin-treated animal models. Wakabayashi et al.13investigated the effect of IL-6 inhibition using an anti-IL-6(MR16-1) antibody in mice. These authors found thatMR16-1 showed a protective effect against noise-inducedcochlear injury, mainly due to neuronal loss suppressionand presumably by relieving the inflammatory response,similar data were found by Nakamoto et al.14Theseauthors suggested that the suppression of proinflammatorycytokine