Pure tone audiometry in children

Objectives: to evaluate the performance of children on pure tone audiometry and the role of age in the test technique. study design: retrospective study from january to december 2008. settings: department of paediatric audiology,the children's hospital & the institute of child health lahore. materials and methods: one thousand one hundred and eighteen children between the age of 3 - 16 years on which pure tone audiometry was done,were included in this study. patients with mental retardation were excluded. pure tone audiometry,both,air and bone conduction hearing thresholds,at 1000hz,2000hz,4000hz,500hz and 250hz bilaterally,were carried out. but in the patients on whom,pure tone audiometry could not been performed,auditory brainstem response was done by sedating with chloral hydrate and all the results were recorded for statistical analysis. results: on a total of 1118 patients (707 males and 411 females),pure tone audiometry was performed. as regards the age,53 (4.74%) children were in age range of 3 - 4 years,141 (12.61%) in 4-5 years and 924 (82.65%) above 5 years. on 47 (4.21%) children,auditory brainstem response was done,being difficult to test for pure tone audiometry. as regards the nature of hearing loss,51 (4.57%) had conductive,231 (20.66%) sensorineural,284 (25.40%) mixed and 552 (49.37%) were normal. as far as severity of hearing loss was concerned,51 (4.57%) had mild,84 (7.52%) moderate,98 (8.77%) severe and 333 (29.79%) profound hearing impairment. conclusion: pure tone audiometry is a powerful hearing assessment technique in children with age of 3 years and above,to establish degree and type of hearing impairment and in case of failure,auditory brainstem response can furnish equivalent results as that of pure tone audiometry.