title: Otoacoustic emissions in children with normal ears, middle ear dysfunction, and ventilating tubes.
abstract: The clinical utility of otoacoustic emissions (OAEs) has been well established in adults. The purpose of this investigation was to determine the efficacy of OAE testing in children. Distortion-product OAE (DPOAE) audiograms, response/growth functions, and transiently evoked OAEs elicited with clicks were measured from the ears of both healthy volunteers, aged 4 to 13 years, and children with confirmed middle ear disorders. These measures established the means and variabilities for DPOAE and noise-floor amplitudes of normal and diseased young ears. Compared with adult emissions, the healthy young ears exhibited greater mean DPOAE and noise-floor amplitudes. In contrast, ears with type B and type C tympanogram patterns showed absent or markedly reduced OAE amplitudes, when compared with emissions measured in their control counterparts. Finally, ears with ventilating tubes exhibited OAE amplitudes lower than amplitudes from healthy ears, but higher than those of the untreated diseased ears. Although these findings imply that using OAEs to test the outer hair-cell reserve of infected ears is problematic, emitted responses provide useful information concerning the normalcy of middle ear function.
authors.affiliation: Department of Otorhinolaryngology and Communicative Sciences, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas.
authors.forename: J J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Owens
authors.forename: M J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: McCoy
authors.forename: B L
authors.initials: BL
authors.lastname: Lonsbury-Martin
authors.forename: G K
authors.initials: GK
authors.lastname: Martin
mesh_terms: D000158:Acoustic Impedance Tests; D000293:Adolescent; D001309:Auditory Threshold; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003051:Cochlea / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000601:surgery; D015834:Cochlear Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000601:surgery; D004432:Ear, Middle / Q000503:physiopathology*; D005260:Female; D006311:Hearing Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology; D006320:Hearing Tests; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008876:Middle Ear Ventilation; D017084:Otoacoustic Emissions, Spontaneous; D012022:Reflex, Acoustic