title: Auditory neuropathy : Diagnostic and therapeutic challenge report of first series of four cases from india.
abstract: Auditory neuropathy (AN), a recently described clinical entity, is a sensorineural disorder where the patient has hearing loss with impaired word discrimination out of proportion to pure tone loss in the pressence of abnormal / absent auditory brain stem responses, and normal outer hair cell as measured by otoacoustic emissions and / cochlear microphonics. It is essential that the practicing, ENT surgeon have a high degree of suspicion of AN in patients complaining of difficulty in understanding speech with hearing loss and audiological evidence of dissociation between pure-tone and speech audiometry. Appropriate newer diagnostic tests of ABR and OAE and /or CM for confirmation of AN is essential. We present a series of four patients with auditory neuropathy from a tertiary care teaching hospital. This is the first Series of 4 cases of this clinical entity from the Indian subcontinent.
authors.affiliation: Dept of ENT, Speech & Hearing Head & Neck Surgery, Christian Medical College, 632 004 Vellore, India.
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Mathew
authors.forename: Mary
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kurien
authors.forename: Priya
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Monica
authors.forename: Rajiv
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Michael
authors.forename: Ruby
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Albert
authors.lastname: Revathy