Study of Tone Burst Brainstem Auditory Response among Preterm Infants

ABSTRACT It is well recognized that hearing deficit is a severe consequence of prematurity. Premature infants have many concomitant risk factors, which influence the occurrence of hearing deficit. Hearing impairment if not detected within first 6 months of life has an important consequence for language acquisition, communication and cognitive, social and emotional development. To quantify audiometric contour and to detect high-frequency hearing loss, tone burst BERA is more beneficial for the preterm infants. The aim of the present study was to detect the hearing impairment among the preterm infants. The present study was carried out at the Department of Physiology, at R. G. Kar Medical College and Hospital on 40 preterm infants and 30 age- and sex-matched term infants from February 2020 to January 2021. BERA testing was performed with the machine Neuro-MEPNET (version 3), Neuro-soft, Russia. The responses were recorded, and statistical analysis was performed with SPSS software version 20. Out of 40 preterm infants, 34 (85%) infants showed abnormality in Latency in one or both ears. The major abnormalities were absence of wave V or increase in wave V latency at 70 dB in both the ears. From our study, it was also found that there was statistically significant increase in the hearing threshold of both the ears of the preterm infants compared to term infants. We can infer from the present study that there is significant delayed maturation of auditory pathway in the form of BAEP abnormalities among the preterm infants.