Comparison of Auditory Brainstem Response and Auditory Steady-State Response Thresholds in Infants and Young Children / 대한이비인후과학회지

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to assess the accuracy of threshold estimates determined by the auditory steady-state response (ASSR) in a group of sedated infants and young children with a range of hearing losses. MATERIALS AND METHOD: Two studies were performed because the behavioral audiometric information was not available from infants and young children. In the first study, a retrospective analysis was performed for 36 children (mean age: 3 years 4 months) who had completed auditory brainstem response (ABR) and pure tone audiometry to verify that ABR threshold is a good predictor for pure tone threshold in our laboratory. The ABR thresholds to 500 Hz, 1000 Hz tone-pip and click were compared with behavioral thresholds. In the second study, a prospective analysis of 23 children (mean age: 12 months), the ABR thresholds to 500 Hz, 1000 Hz tone-pip and click were compared with ASSR thresholds to amplitude and frequency modulated tones. RESULTS: The first study in which strong correlations were found between ABR and pure tone thresholds (r> or =0.92) demonstrated that ABR thresholds could be used to predict the pure tone thresholds. The second study which showed that ASSR thresholds were highly correlated with ABR thresholds (r> or =0.93) indicated that ASSR thresholds provided reliable audiometric information in infants and young children. CONCLUSION: These studies showed that ASSR could be used to estimate hearing thresholds with reliable accuracy in infants and young children.