The Effect of Acute Otitis Media on Transient Otoacoustic Emissions; A Clinical Guide to Successful Treatment Course

Introduction & Acute otitis media (AOM) is the most common causes of acquired hearing loss in children with increasing incidence. In young children the diagnosis is restricted to otoscopy and tympanometry whereas evaluation of the auditory function is impossible due to noncompliance during pure tone audiometry. For this purpose, measurement of otoacoustic emissions, especially transient evoked ones (TEOAEs), can be applied. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of AOM on TEOAEs in young children before and after treatment course. In an analytic, cross-sectional design, 42 young children with AOM, both sexes, aged 2 to 4.5 years were evaluated through tympanometry and transient otoacoustic emissions (TEOAEs). TEOAEs signal to noise ratio (SNR) and reproducibility of AOM patients were compared before, two weeks and six weeks after the treatment course. Then AOM responses were compared with an age-matched control group. The results were analyzed using SPSS 16. Our findings revealed that TEOAE parameters in AOM subjects were the most affected on highest frequencies. Significant changes of TEOAE parameters were found 2 weeks after the treatment with further improvement 6 weeks after the treatment course (P < 0.01). The mean differences in TEOAE responses in AOM children 6 weeks after the treatment and the control group were not meaningful (P>0.05). The results of this study suggest that there was an improvement in TEOAE SNR and band reproducibility in serial TEOAEs measurements. Thus,application of TEOAEs is a beneficial method to follow up medical treatment in young children with AOM.