Otoacoustic emissions (TEOAE) in diabetic patients (IDDM) with normal hearing

Introduction: Transitorily evoked otoacoustic emissions (TEOAE) are a recog nised clinical tool for neonatal screening. TEOAE also provide evidence of subclinical cochlear damage in diabetic patients. Method: TEOAE of 60 patients with well managed diabetes (IDDM) and normal h earing (no value worse than 20 dB (SD 3.943 dB), normal ABR) were compared with TEOAE of 58 normally hearing controls of the same age. Results: IDDM patients had a mean response of 7.13 dB (SD 3.943 dB), while the control group had a response of 11.56 dB (SD 4.402 dB). Discussion: Significantly worse TEOAE scores were demonstrated in the diabe tic patients who had normal hearing, as demonstrated on pure-tone audiometr y. This would suggest that hair-cell damage may occur in the diabetic patie nt even though hearing loss is not demonstrated.