Kashiwamura M
Department of Otolaryngology, Hokkaido University School of Medicine, Sapporo, Japan.
Hokkaido Igaku Zasshi. 1998 Nov;73(6):641-62.
Distortion product otoacoustic emission (DPOAE) is one of the acoustic responses derived from the inner ears and it has very sharp frequency specificities. The purpose of this study is to investigate the utility of DPOAE as a method for evaluating human cochlea functions. The whole subjects of this study were 414 ears with inner ear hearing loss, 278 ears with normal hearing, 113 ears of neonates, 62 ears of the patients who were administered cisplatin, and 15 ears with functional hearing loss. At first, 5 studies described below were performed to examine the characters and reliability of DPOAE as a clinical test: 1) The average DPOAE-gram of normal hearing ears. 2) The comparison between DPOAE levels and hearing levels. 3) The reproducibility of DPOAE on the different examinations in the same subjects. 4) The influences of respiratory noises on DPOAE levels. 5) The detection of fine cochlea damages using DPOAE which can not be detected by pure tone audiometry. Then the following 2 clinical studies were performed: 6) The utility of DPOAE in neonates and children. 7) The utility of DPOAE in functional deafness cases. From these studies, the following characters of DPOAE were confirmed. Since DPOAE levels have correlations with hearing levels at the same frequencies, normal hearing could be determined by the DPOAE level. DPOAE is useful for following chronological changes in hearing because of its reproducibility in a same subject at different times. The early and fine damages on the cochlea that could not be detected by conventional pure tone audiometry might be detected by DPOAE in some cases. Considering these results, it was concluded that DPOAE could be a new objective hearing test which would help the conventional examinations. Especially in infants who can't be examined with pure tone audiometry, DPOAE is thought to be a very useful examination.
畸变产物耳声发射（DPOAE）是源自内耳的声学反应之一，具有非常尖锐的频率特异性。本研究的目的是探讨DPOAE作为评估人类耳蜗功能方法的实用性。本研究的全部受试者包括414例内耳听力损失患者的耳朵、278例听力正常者的耳朵、113例新生儿的耳朵、62例接受顺铂治疗患者的耳朵以及15例功能性听力损失患者的耳朵。首先，进行了以下5项研究以检验DPOAE作为临床测试的特征和可靠性：1）听力正常耳朵的平均DPOAE图谱。2）DPOAE水平与听力水平的比较。3）同一受试者不同检查中DPOAE的可重复性。4）呼吸噪声对DPOAE水平的影响。5）使用DPOAE检测纯音听力计无法检测到的细微耳蜗损伤。然后进行了以下2项临床研究：6）DPOAE在新生儿和儿童中的实用性。7）DPOAE在功能性聋病例中的实用性。通过这些研究，证实了DPOAE的以下特征。由于DPOAE水平与相同频率下的听力水平相关，因此可通过DPOAE水平确定听力是否正常。由于DPOAE在同一受试者不同时间具有可重复性，因此可用于跟踪听力随时间的变化。在某些情况下，DPOAE可能检测到传统纯音听力计无法检测到的耳蜗早期细微损伤。考虑到这些结果，得出结论：DPOAE可以成为一种有助于传统检查的新的客观听力测试。特别是对于无法进行纯音听力计检查的婴儿，DPOAE被认为是一种非常有用的检查方法。
