Newborn Hearing Screening with Two-Step Protocol and Risk Factor Identification: Our Experience at a Tertiary Care Centre in Eastern India

Pradipta Kumar Parida; Aswathi Kallyadan Veetil; Vinusree Karakkandy; Preetam Chappity; Saurav Sarkar; Pradeep Pradhan; Dillip Kumar Samal; Abhishek Anil; Anju Sara Eby

doi:10.1007/s12070-023-03723-3

Newborn Hearing Screening with Two-Step Protocol and Risk Factor Identification: Our Experience at a Tertiary Care Centre in Eastern India

Indian J Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg. 2023 Sep;75(3):1743-1749. doi: 10.1007/s12070-023-03723-3. Epub 2023 Mar 29.

Authors

Pradipta Kumar Parida¹, Aswathi Kallyadan Veetil¹, Vinusree Karakkandy¹, Preetam Chappity¹, Saurav Sarkar¹, Pradeep Pradhan¹, Dillip Kumar Samal¹, Abhishek Anil², Anju Sara Eby³

Affiliations

¹ Department of ENT and HNS, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Bhubaneswar, India.
² Department of Pharmacology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Jodhpur, India.
³ All India Institute of Speech and Hearing, Mysore, India.

PMID: 37636751
PMCID: PMC10447311 (available on 2024-09-01)
DOI: 10.1007/s12070-023-03723-3

Abstract

Objective: To estimate the prevalence of hearing loss and identify the high-risk factors among neonates with hearing loss.

Methods: Retrospective study done on 1054 infants in a tertiary care centre in Eastern India from 2020 to 2021 and approved by the Institutional Ethics Committee. A two-step protocol is used for screening. In the well-nursed group, OAE and BOA were performed. In the case of REFER results for automated ABR following OAE evaluation in well-nursed babies, a detailed audiological evaluation was scheduled to be carried out using diagnostic ABR within one month of age. In the high-risk group, hearing screening includes OAE, BOA, and AABR evaluations. AABR evaluation was performed as a part of the screening protocol irrespective of the results of OAE screening as PASS or REFER.

Results: In our study among 1053 neonates screened, 375 were in the risk category, and 679 were without risk factors. The overall prevalence of hearing loss in neonates was 22.78 per 1000 screened neonates and 56 per 1000 among high-risk neonates. In the high-risk group, we were able to identify 4 cases of Auditory spectrum neuropathy disorder with the use of AABR during 1st step of screening. In multivariate regression analysis, the risk factors for hearing loss identified were NICU stay (OR = 3.6, 95% CI = 1.1-12.03) and Craniofacial anomalies (OR = 55.37, 95% CI = 16.48- 186.01).

Conclusion: Early neonatal screening helps in the detection, intervention, and rehabilitation of hearing loss. The use of AABR in risk infant screening enhanced the chance of detection of auditory spectrum neuropathy disorder (ASND) cases.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12070-023-03723-3.

Keywords: Audiology; Hearing loss; Neonatal screening; Risk factors; Universal hearing screening.

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