1994 Volume 37 Issue 2 Pages 126-131
Though acute low tone sensorineural hearing loss (ALTHL) was once included in sudden deafness (SD), currently it is regarded as a different syndrome or a disease from it's clinical features. Pathogenesis of ALTHL is now supposed to be multiple and complex just like in the case of SD. On the other hand, evoked otoacoustic emission (EOAE) has been expected as an objective test of cochlear function assessment. To explore both the pathology of ALTHL and the precise origin of EOAEs, five cases were evaluated by means of pure tone audiometry and EOAEs. In spite of the full or near-full recovery of hearing level in all cases, the minimum detectable level of each components (fast and slow) of EOAEs showed no remarkable change through the recovery period. Cochlea partitions which are responsible for ALTHL revealed a slight difference from the generator of EOAEs.
