Abstract
We investigated the actual status of Newborn Hearing Screening (NHS) in Yamagata prefecture by conducting a questionnaire survey of 66 obstetricians in the region. NHS was performed at 14 maternity clinics: using automated auditory brainstem response (AABR) at 6 clinics and otoacoustic emission (OAE) at 8 clinics.
About 33% of the neonates in Yamagata prefecture were screened.
At the Yamagata University Hospital, behavioral audiometry and careful examination by evaluation of the auditory steady-state response (ASSR) as well as conventional ABR were performed in 32 infants referred after NHS. Among the 19 infants referred following screening by AABR, binaural hearing loss was detected in 3. Among the 13 infants referred after screening by OAE, none was detected to have hearing loss. Thus, as compared with OAE, AABR appears to have greater sensitivity and, therefore, to be more suitable for NHS.
