otoacoustic emissions in sudden sensorineural hearing loss: changes of measures with treatment

introduction: to identify changes in oaes parameters in treatment course of idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss (issnhl). materials and methods: in aprospective studyfromaugust 2005 to january 2009, 26 patients with issnhl underwent conventional audiometry/tympanometry and two types of oaes (teoaes and dpoaes) before and after the completion of standard drug therapy.the changes in pre- and post- treatment parameters were compared with each other and with normal-contralateral ears. results: in teoaes, the mean overall correlation (reproducibility) and the mean overall strength in involved ears were 10.96±23.36 and 0.99±3.45 db, respectively, before the treatment, which reached 22.88±36.55 and 1.85±5.3, respectively, after the treatment (p>0.05). significant difference between “correlation score” (average of correlations at 3-4 involved frequencies) before and after treatment was found: 6.52 ±18.19 vs. 21.67±37.8 (p<0.034). the difference between pre- and post-treatmentoverall correlation and correlation score in the “response group” were significant (p<0.031).  in dpoaes of the involved ears, the mean dp1 level and the dp1 signal-to-noiseratio changes were not significant with the treatment (p>0.05). conclusion: evoked oaes, especially teoaes, are objective, rapid, and sensitive tools in the treatment course of issnhl.