Clinical Evaluation of Distortion Product Otoacoustic Emission (DPOAE) in Idiopathic Sudden Hearing Loss

We investigated the correlation between the distortion product otoacoustic emission (DPOAE) level and the prognosis of idiopathic sudden hearing loss. The subjects were 21 patients who were evaluated with DPOAE in two weeks of their onsets. They consisted of 14 men and 7 women, and their ages were from 17 to 68 years old. Biologic Scout was used as a DPOAE device. In this study, 18 out of 21 subjects had hearing loss exceeding 60dB hearing level at any one of the frequencies between 500Hz to 8kHz. All 9 patients who had good DPOAE response in spite of hearing loss exceeding 60dB hearing level showed a considerable recovery. In contrast, four out of 9 patients who had poor DPOAE response showed a slight recovery and 5 did not recover at all. The presence of good DPOAE response at corresponding frequencies in spite of hearing loss over 60dB hearing level may be useful for prognostic indication for recovery from idiopathic sudden hearing loss.