An accuracy of whisper hearing test together with screening otoacoustic emissions in the detection of hearing loss

Abstract

Summary Introduction: The aim of this paper is to evaluate the ability of a whisper hearing test together with an examination of transiently evoked otoacoustic emissions (TEOAE) to detect a hearing loss at the first contact with an adult patient with the indicated hearing impairment. This can be helpful in situations when a threshold pure tone audiometry cannot be performed. Methodology: We included a group of patients who were examined simultaneously with a classical whisper hearing test, TEOAE and a pure tone audiometry at the Department of Otorhinolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery of the Pardubice Hospital. Sixty-two patients with a hearing impairment and 14 healthy subjects were tested. Results: A sensitivity of the whisper hearing test alone was 85% and that of TEOAE was 71%. The sensitivity increased to 94%, when both of them were used. At the same time, a relatively high specificity (75%) of the examination was present. Using the whisper hearing test and TEOAE, we did not detect 3.3% of patients with hearing loss detected by pure tone audiometry. Conclusion: In the situation when no pure tone audiometry is available a combination of the whisper hearing test and TEOAE may be used to detect a hearing loss. The combination of these two methods can be considered for a recently much-discussed screening for hearing impairment in the elderly. Key words whisper hearing test – transient evoked otoacoustic emissions – TEOAE – hearing loss – screening