QUANTITATIVE AND FREQUENCY-SPECIFIC PREDI CTION OF HEARING THRESHOLD BASED ON OTOACOUSTIC EMISSIONS

Background: Otoacoustic emissions can be used to study cochlear functi on in a non-invasive manner. They are an effective clinical tool for i nfant hearing screening. The purpose of this study was to determine th eir utility for a frequency-specific and quantitative estimation of th e hearing threshold. Methods: Transiently evoked otoacoustic emissions (TEOAE) and distortion-product emissions (DPOAE) were recorded from 1 6 normal and 86 hearing impaired ears and correlated with their hearin g threshold between 0.5 and 6.0 kHz. Results: The correlations of TEOA E and the hearing threshold ranged from 0.53 (0.5 kHz) to 0.69 (6.0 kH z), of the DPOAE from 0.51 (0.5 kHz) to 0.83 (6.0 kHz). Based on the o ptimal correlating OAE frequency we tried to predict the hearing thres hold. We obtained 95% prediction intervals for TEOA between 19 dB (1.0 kHz) and 39 dB (4.0 and 6.0 kHz), for DPOAE between 21 dB (1.0) and 3 4 dB (3.0 and 4.0 kHz). Conclusion: Despite their clinically irrelevan t greater prediction intervals at the low frequencies, our results sug gest that DPOAEs are generally more valuable for the frequency-specifi c estimation of the hearing threshold. Prediction intervals may improv e the interpretation of OAEs.