title: [Early hearning screening by otoacoustic emissions and auditory brain stem response in Nabeul].
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Hearing loss is the most common congenital abnormality with a reported prevalence of 1 to 3 ‰ live births. Early detection and intervention is critical to prevent the adverse consequences of a delayed diagnosis on speech language and cognitive development.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  study the frequency of deafness in the newborns and the infants under 6 months followed in Tlatli Hospital in Nabeul and to search for correlations with risk factors identified by the Joint Committee on Infant Screening.
  
  
  METHODS
  397 children aged between 04 days and 5 months with deafness risks are tested on two-stage strategy of evoked otoacoustic emissions (EOAE) and auditory brain stem response (ABR).
  
  
  RESULTS
  EOAE test is positif in 9,32 % of cases (37 children) and the ABR test is positif at 7 of these ; that is 1,76 % of cases. Significant statistic correlations were found with the antecedent of bacterial meningitis (p=0,001) and trisomy 21 (p=0,018). Unfortunately 40 % of the children were lost to follow-up.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  EOAE with ABR provide an excellent procosis screening technique of hearing loss. Such screening implies however the creation of networks to assure patient follow up.
authors.forename: Asma Bouaziz
authors.initials: AB
authors.lastname: Abed
authors.forename: Hamida
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Saad
authors.forename: Rafiaa
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Mustpha
authors.forename: Mouna
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Chiha
authors.forename: Sana
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ben Gamra
mesh_terms: D003638:Deafness / Q000175:diagnosis*; D004314:Down Syndrome / Q000453:epidemiology; D016057:Evoked Potentials, Auditory, Brain Stem; D005260:Female; D006320:Hearing Tests; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D016920:Meningitis, Bacterial / Q000453:epidemiology; D015997:Neonatal Screening; D017084:Otoacoustic Emissions, Spontaneous; D011446:Prospective Studies; D014416:Tunisia