Narrow band CE-Chirp auditory steady-state response is more reliable than the conventional ASSR in predicting the behavioral hearing threshold.

OBJECTIVE

We evaluated conventional ASSR (Bio-logic MASTER II) and NB CE-Chirp ASSR thresholds as objective hearing measures in both normal and hearing loss subjects.

METHODS

Patients with sensorineural hearing loss and volunteer normal hearing subjects were enrolled. Pure tone thresholds at 0.5, 1, 2 and 4 kHz were compared with the corresponding thresholds measured using Bio-logic MASTER II and the Eclipse ASSR systems. The threshold differences and correlation with pure tone were measured and reliability was evaluated with Cronbach's α. In part I of the study, all subjects were included, in part II of the study, only mild hearing loss and normal hearing subjects were included.

RESULTS

In part I, NB CE-Chirp ASSR revealed a significantly smaller difference in threshold than conventional ASSR, a better correlation and better reliability. However, lower frequencies of NB CE-Chirp tended to be less reliable than higher frequencies. In part II, NB CE-Chirp revealed smaller threshold differences than conventional ASSR. Both correlation scores and reliability values were generally lower in the part II results.

CONCLUSION

NB CE-Chirp ASSR generally revealed more favorable outcomes. However, its reliability was reduced at lower frequencies and in patients with milder hearing loss.