Value of otoacoustic emission in monitoring hearing acuity in chronic renal failure patients

Evaluation of hearing acuity using the conventional pure-tone audiometry was performed in 48 patients less than 40 years of age as well as 15 age and sex matched healthy subjects as controls [group I]. Twenty-two patients were treated conservatively [group II] and twenty-six patients on regular hemodialysis HD [group III] who were further classified according to the duration of HD into fourteen patients dialyzed for l year [group IIIb]. The transient evoked otoacoustic emission [TEOAE] method was applied only for patients proved to have normal pure tone thresholds. The percentages of patients with sensorineural hearing loss [SNHL] in groups [II]and [III] were 22.7% and 15.3%, respectively, utilizing the pure-tone audiometry method. The results revealed that hearing acuity was found to be impaired in chronic renal failure patients whether conservatively treated or hemodialyzed. The transient evoked otoacoustic emission is better than the conventional pure-tone audiometry for evaluation of hearing acuity in this setting