title: Hearing screening in a tertiary care hospital in India.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  To study the incidence of hearing loss among children and to determine and confirm the distribution of common risk factors in children with hearing loss presenting at a tertiary care hospital in India.
  
  
  METHODS
  Babies underwent hearing screening using Transient Evoked Otoacoustic Emission (TEOAE) and Automated Auditory Brainstem Response (AABR) from November 2009 to September 2011. It was a cross-sectional study carried out at our institute involving 500 babies (≤2 y). To identify the high risk babies, Joint Committee on Infant Hearing (2007) High risk registry was used.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In our study 110 (22%) babies belonged to high risk category and 11(2.2%) of total screened babies had significant hearing loss. Total number of babies who passed the initial screening with TEOAE was 284 (56.8%). On diagnostic AABR screening of TEOAE REFERRED babies, the babies with no risk factor showed normal AABR tracings whereas from among those with one or multiple risk factors (110 babies), 11(10%) showed different levels of hearing impairment. Hearing loss was highly associated with Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) admission i.e. 8/11(72.7%), followed by Low Birth Weight (LBW) and hypoxia (6/11 i.e. 54.5% each).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Hearing loss is more common in those babies with risk factors (majority being NICU admission, LBW and hypoxia). OAE and ABR screening of infants at risk for significant hearing loss is a clinically efficient and cost effective approach for early detection of significant hearing loss.
authors.affiliation: Senior Resident, Department of Otorhinolaryngology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences , Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India .
authors.forename: Amit
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kumar
authors.affiliation: Ex Senior Resident, Department of Otorhinolaryngology, B.J.Medical College & Civil Hospital , Ahmedabad, India .
authors.forename: Neha
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Shah
authors.affiliation: Assistant Professor, Department of Otorhinolaryngology, B.J.Medical College & Civil Hospital , Ahmedabad, India .
authors.forename: Kalpesh B
authors.initials: KB
authors.lastname: Patel
authors.affiliation: Professor & Head, Department of Otorhinolaryngology, B.J.Medical College & Civil Hospital , Ahmedabad, India .
authors.forename: Rajesh
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Vishwakarma
keywords: Automated auditory brainstem response (AABR); Hearing Screening; High risk; NICU admission; Transient evoked otoacoustic Emissions (TEOAE)