Distortion product otoacoustic emissions test is useful in children undergoing cisplatin treatment.
BACKGROUND
Cisplatin is a widely used chemotherapy agent that has several adverse effects, such as ototoxicity. Evaluation of hearing loss due to cisplatin therapy in children is difficult. The purpose of this study was to compare the validity of distortion product otoacoustic emissions (DPOAEs) with pure tone audiometry (PTA) in assessing hearing loss in children under cisplatin therapy.


METHODS
We reviewed the files of 26 children aged between 2 and 15 years; 14 were girls. All were under treatment with cisplatin for malignancy. PTA and DPOAEs were obtained at the same session. Three subjects were studied twice; thus, there were 29 sets of studies.


RESULTS
Determining a cut-off point at 45 dB HL for PTA and 4 dB SPL difference for DPOAEs, diagnostic specificity for the latter was 0.97 while sensitivity was 0.57.


CONCLUSIONS
DPOAEs represent a highly valuable test for evaluating hearing loss due to cisplatin treatment. DPOAEs is a quick and objective hearing assessment method not requiring much cooperation from children.
Departamento de Investigación en Audiología y Neurofisiología, Instituto de la Comunicación Humana, Centro Nacional de Rehabilitación, Secretaría de Salud, Mexico City, Mexico. toralm@latinmail.com
René
R
Toral-Martiñón
Paul
P
Shkurovich-Bialik
Miguel Angel
MA
Collado-Corona
Ignacio
I
Mora-Magaña
Shani
S
Goldgrub-Listopad
Mario
M
Shkurovich-Zaslavsky
D000293:Adolescent; D000970:Antineoplastic Agents / Q000009:adverse effects*; D001301:Audiometry, Pure-Tone; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D002945:Cisplatin / Q000009:adverse effects*; D005260:Female; D006319:Hearing Loss, Sensorineural / Q000139:chemically induced*; D006801:Humans; D017084:Otoacoustic Emissions, Spontaneous; D015203:Reproducibility of Results
D000970:Antineoplastic Agents; D002945:Cisplatin