Harish Chandra Reddy P1, S. Muneeruddin Ahmed2
INTRODUCTION
Interpersonal communication, day to day activities, learning language and acquiring grades in the school are important parts in the life of school going children. Unilateral or bilateral Loss of hearing affects education and the child feels handicapped socially, emotionally, and scholastically. Such children lose grades and retained in the same class affecting them emotionally. The present study was conducted in order to find out the various causes of unilateral Sensorineural Hearing Loss (USNHL) in children and to study role of various audiological findings in diagnosing the cause of impaired hearing in children.
AIMS AND OBJECTIVES To find out the possible etiological causes and study the role of various audiological tests in finding the causes of unilateral impaired hearing in children.
MATERIALS AND METHODS A prospective study was conducted in the Department of ENT of a tertiary Hospital attached to a Medical College in Warangal, Telangana. A total of 346 children aged between 4 and 15 years attended presenting with complaints of impaired hearing. Among them 73 children with unilateral sensorineural deafness were included in the study. After a thorough ENT examination subjective tests like pure tone audiometry and behavioral observation audiometry and objective tests like impedance audiometry, Oto-acoustic emissions (OAE), and brainstem evoked response audiometry (BERA) were performed.
RESULTS While identifying the possible etiological cause of USNHL, OAE revealed 56.16% REFER and 43.83% PASS results. Impedance audiometric results showed 71.22% as Type A Tympanogram. Pure tone audiometric results were mostly showed severe and profound hearing losses together accounting to 87.66%. BERA findings were mostly on severe and profound hearing loss (90.40%). No children with syndromic or cranio-facial abnormalities were found.
CONCLUSIONS A prospective Hospital based study of school children with USNHL showed acquired nature of the condition with moderate to severe hearing loss. No accompanying syndromic or cephalo-facial anomalies were noted as the cause of USNHL.
