Success rate of newborn and follow-up screening of hearing using otoacoustic emissions.

OBJECTIVE: During the last 6 years, and after a long period of pilot study, a universal newborn hearing screening program based on otoacoustic emissions is implemented in Iaso Maternity Hospital. Our purpose is to present the success rate of otoacoustic emission testing on discharge from the hospital and 1 month later.

METHODS: All full-term newborns who were screened during a period of 2 years and failed testing after one or more sessions of transiently evoked otoacoustic emissions, on discharge from the hospital, were included in the study. These newborns were retested approximately 1 month after discharge.

RESULTS: Twenty-five thousand and thirty-two newborns were examined in total. We found 534 (2.1%) 'refer' cases. Only 223 of them (41.8%) returned to retest in follow-up after 1 month. From the rescreening, 59 (2.3 per thousand) newborns failed in the test again and were referred for diagnostic audiological evaluation.

CONCLUSIONS: The rate of referrals was small, but efforts should be made to decrease it further. The final number of 'failures' found, approaches the expected rate of definitely diagnosed deafness reported from other settings. The main problem we have still to confront is the high missed to-follow-up rate.