Thus, 29.23% (83/284) of the unrelated families of deaf patients in typical areas in China had molecular defects in GJB2, and 18.31% (52/284) had confirmed molecular etiology of nonsyndromic hearing impairment (51 autosomal recessive and 1 autosomal dominant) in the GJB2 gene. Here, GJB2 is linked to hearing loss disorder.