Abstract
Objective: To investigate the prevalence of injury of outer hair cells by means of transient evoked otoacoustic emission and distortion product evoked otoacoustic emission tests among teenagers of a private high school in Brazil.
Method: Survey study. We performed transient evoced otoacoustic emission and distortion product evoced otoacoustic emission tests in 134 young individuals from January to December 2011. We analyzed the results according to the “pass/fail” criterion for the parameters amplitude of the signal and signal/noise ratio.
Results: A total of 80.6% of 134 participants had abnormal transient otoacoustic emissions and most were men (92.9%; P < .05). In all, 97.8% showed abnormal distortion product otoacoustic emissions and no difference regarding the gender (P = .2). A total of 79.9% showed abnormalities in both transient and distortion product in at least 1 ear, most were men (P < .05). In sum, 94.0% reported the use of headphones, and 82.8% reported attending some type of place with amplified music.
Conclusion: The high prevalence of abnormal tests could early indicate a cochlear dysfunction, and the high number of participants who reported being exposed to loud music leads to suspicion that this habit might be causing these cochlear changes.
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