Otoacoustic emissions in otologic practice

Otoacoustic emissions offer the clinician a number of advantages as objective measures of the peripheral processing of sound. A great number of studies over the past few years have shown that evoked emissions are helpful in the screening of cochlear function in infants and young children, in the diagnosis of sensorineural hearing loss, and in the monitoring of outer hair cell activity in special subpopulations of critically ill patients and noise-exposed industrial workers. The focus of the present report is to review the benefits of evoked-emissions testing that can be realized in the practice of otology and/or neurotology.