Universal newborn hearing screening.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: New technology has made universal newborn hearing screening possible. Our goal was to investigate the feasibility of universal newborn screening using distortion product otoacoustic emissions (DPOAE) on infants in a community hospital in a normal newborn nursery. METHODS: We used DPOAE to screen newborn infants from February 1997 to March 1999. RESULTS: Of 1002 infants, 111 failed the initial screen (11.1%). When screening was repeated, only 2 infants failed. One infant failed the second screen and a tympanogram. He was treated and he passed a third use of DPOAE. An additional infant failed the repeat screen but passed the tympanogram. That infant was referred on for auditory brain response testing. CONCLUSIONS: DPOAE testing can be accomplished easily in a normal newborn nursery with an acceptable false-positive rate when a two-stage approach is used. The cost for each test was $19.88. The cost to find the 1 infant with sensory neural hearing loss was $22,114.