Brainstem-Evoked Response Audiometry in Pediatric Age Group

Introduction: Hearing loss in early life hampers development of children, early detection of hearing loss in paediatric age group gives opportunity to treat it and good speech and overall development of children. In this study BERA was done on high risk children and various risk factor compared. Comparison between BERA and OAE was done as a screening test. Aims: To evaluate the hearing threshold and find the incidence of deafness in high risk paediatric age group category and analyse the common risk factors and to compare BERA with OAE. Materials and Method: 60 infants and high risk children were subjected to BERA after detailed ENT examination. In 0 to 5 year age group dPOAE was done on same sitting. Results analysed. Statistical Analysis Used: Relative risk ratio was done for each risk factor. Sensitivity and specificity of OAE in comparison to BERA as a gold standard was done. Results: In this study 42% of high risk children showed hearing loss. Most common risk factor among children with hearing loss was consanguineous marriage (24%) followed by neonatal jaundice (16%), low birth weight (12%) and others. Comparison of OAE and BERA with BERA as gold standard test shows sensitivity of OAE is 96.15%, specificity is 72.73%. Conclusion: All high risk children should be screened with BERA early so that children with hearing loss identified and taken care for that. In centre where no experts available OAE can be used for screening of high risk children as OAE has a good sensitivity.