Automated Adaptive Wideband Acoustic Stapedius Reflex Thresholds in Adults With Normal Hearing and Sensorineural Hearing Loss.
M Patrick Feeney, Kim S Schairer, Daniel B Putterman and 5 others
PMID 36631948WHAT IT FOUND
A wideband reflex test identified sensorineural hearing loss better than a standard reflex test, especially for moderate loss.
It also used fewer trials than an earlier wideband method.
Key findings
01The adaptive wideband method produced larger reflex-threshold differences between normal hearing and moderate sensorineural loss than the clinical method, especially for broadband noise.
02The adaptive wideband broadband noise test separated moderate sensorineural loss from normal hearing better than the clinical broadband noise test.
03The adaptive wideband method needed fewer trials to estimate reflex threshold than the earlier fixed wideband procedure.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The sample was mostly male veterans: 3 female and 42 male participants had sensorineural hearing loss. Only ears with normal middle ear function were included, so the results may not apply to patients with tympanograms outside the study range. Maximum activator levels were capped at 105 dB SPL for tones and 90 dB SPL for broadband noise, and absent responses were coded as 110 dB SPL for tones and 95 dB SPL for broadband noise. Some ears had no valid threshold because of seal, equipment, or software problems, and the number of ears varied across conditions. Test performance was evaluated by comparing groups already classified by audiometry, so cut-offs may not transfer to an unselected clinic population. The clinical and wideband systems differed in probe and noise bandwidth, so part of the difference may come from the systems themselves. The paper discusses possible use with children or difficult-to-test persons, but did not test them.
Declared interests
No author conflicts are reported in the supplied text. The publication types list U.S. Government research support.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that this test can diagnose sensorineural hearing loss on its own. The study defined hearing loss with audiometry first, and the wideband broadband noise cut-off above 75 dB SPL still misidentified 21% of normal-hearing ears.