Comparison of the audiometric assessment on patients with sensorineural hearing loss by auditory steadystate responses and by auditory brainstem responses

Objective To compare the accuracy of threshold estimation tested by multiple auditory steady state responses(ASSR) and by auditory brainstem responses(ABR) in adults with sensorineural hearing loss(SNHL).Methods 102 patients(158 ears) with varying degrees of SNHL were included and received pure-tone audiometry,multi-channel ASSR,and ABR tests for threshold measurement.The correlation of pure tone thresholds with ASSR and ABR thresholds were assessed.Results Both ASSR and ABR had high correlations with behavioral thresholds in all subjects.The two methods had similar accuracy to estimate behavioral thresholds at high frequency ;ASSR had higher accuracy than ABR had in estimating behavioral thresholds at low frequency.Conclusion Both ASSR and ABR could be used to estimate behavioral thresholds in adults with SNHL,but ASSR had more predominance than ABR in estimating behavioral thresholds.