Cortical deafness as a sequela to meningitis: a single case study

The study reports a case that was responding well to sounds and suddenly stopped hearing following fever. She contracted bacterial meningitis at the age of 5 months and had sought an audiological opinion at the age of 7 years. On evaluation, the objective test results showed normal peripheral hearing, but behaviorally she did not respond to any sounds presented during pure-tone audiometry (PTA). Thus, she was evaluated for higher auditory function using late latency response (LLR) and the responses were absent bilaterally. This confirmed cortical deafness post meningitis. Meningitis can thus also cause cortical deafness in addition to peripheral hearing loss.