Abstract
Psychogenic deafness is a functional deafness in the absence of organic pathology. With the awareness of traumatic events, auditory brain stem responses (ABRs) are needed for confirmation of the diagnosis, especially in more complex cases.
In our hospital, distortion product otoacoustic emission (DPOAE) testing is routinely used as an objective method. We present the results of ABR and DPOAE in two cases and report finding that DPOAE is a helpful tool for rapid and reliable diagnosis. In the first case, a 10-year-old agirl, who had varied hearing loss from 40 dB HL to 90 dB HL when tested by pure tone audiometry, was diagnosed as having psychogenic deafness with a normal ABR and DPOAE pattern. In the second case, a 7-year-old girl, who showed a hearing loss of 60 dB HL in the left ear, was introduced to our hospital with suspected left sudden deafness. She was diagnosed as having psychogenic deafness with normal ABR and DPOAE.
In conclusion, DPOAE testing is useful for the rapid and reliable diagnosis of psychogenic deafness in children.
