A Comparison of Thresholds of Auditory Steady-State Response and Auditory Brainstem Response in Healthy Term Babies

OBJECTIVE: The goal of this study was to assess the effectiveness of auditory steady-state response (ASSR), determine the cut-off values for each frequency, and detect the best correlated frequencies when compared with the auditory brainstem response (ABR) thresholds in term babies under the age of 12 months. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In total, 88 term babies with a mean age of 2.98 (1-11) months (174 ears) underwent ASSR and ABR tests. The ASSR thresholds for the frequencies of 500, 1000, 2000, and 4000 Hz were compared with the hearing level of the ABR thresholds. In the ABR test, a cut-off value of 30 dB nHL was selected for normal hearing. In addition, the best correlation between the ABR and ASSR thresholds and the estimated cut-off thresholds of ASSR for each of the abovementioned frequencies were obtained. RESULTS: In total, 135 ears had values indicating normal hearing ability and 39 ears had hearing loss according to the ABR thresholds. Although statistically significant correlations were found between the ABR and ASSR thresholds at all frequencies in all groups, these correlations were not strong. On the other hand, a strong correlation was found between the responses of the ABR and ASSR thresholds at 4000 Hz in the hearing-impaired subjects. CONCLUSION: Our findings suggest that ASSR may not be beneficial or reliable as a screening test. Thus, it is likely to be considered as a complementary test rather than an alternative to the ABR test.