Distortion product oto-acoustic emissions as objective audiometry in a group of children with ventilation tubes.

Distortion product oto-acoustic emissions as objective audiometry in a group of children with ventilation tubes.Gordts F, Naessens B, Meyvisch P, Clement PA.
Department of Biostatistics, Free University of Brussels, Belgium.

The aim of this study was to evaluate distortion product oto-acoustic emissions (DPOAEs) as a means of objective audiometry in a population of children with ventilation tubes. We measured DPOAEs at two different stimulus levels--recorded transient evoked oto-acoustic emissions (TEOAEs) and obtained pure-tone audiometry (PTA). DPOAEs were compared with the normal range proposed by the Madsen company: the CELESTA 503 provides a 'normalized' distortion-product-gram which we compared with the pure-tone threshold of the test group. DPOAEs at 60 dBSPL were more easily obtained in the test group than TEOAEs and PTA. Correlation between 'normalized' DPOAEs and pure-tone thresholds was the strongest at 2 and 4 kHz. Surprisingly, DPOAEs at 60 dBSPL showed significant differences also at 2 and 4 kHz compared with the Madsen data. DPOAEs at 60 dBSPL might be an easy, objective test for evaluating auditory function and for determining hearing threshold at 2 and 4 kHz.