Normalization of bone conduction auditory evoked responses in normal hearing individuals

Auditory Brainstem responses (ABR) nowadays is one of the most important objective tests commonly used in the evaluation of the peripheral and central functions of auditory pathway. Having two different stimuli, including air and bone conduction path of the ABR and thus increase the importance of the pure tone audiometry test closer the offer on the type and degree of hearing loss. In general, the wave latencies and interpeak latencies (IPL) are the most important data in air and bone ABR tests, used for determine auditory sensitivity. Gender and age of the patients are some of the factors affecting these latencies. Therefore, in order to detect latency anomalies, to predict the effect of age and gender on the wave latencies and there is need to determine the data of those with normal hearing in the various age periods in it. The aim of this study is to determine the effect of of gender and age in bone conduction ABR responses and to establish normative data on clinical data in this direction. In our study 100 person who hear normally between 10-60 years of age were included and divided into five groups according to their age (there was 10 men and 10 women in each group). All patients received 10, 30, and 50 dB nHL stimulus intensity in performing bone conduction ABR latency and IPL's were investigated. In our study, there was a statistically significant difference between men and women considering the wave latencies and IPL's determined by gender (p<0.05). In the same way, when the wave latencies compared to the stimulus intensity statistically significant difference were found in all age groups (p<0.05). However by the IPL results there was no statistically significant difference in all age groups. In order to be the reference for clinical usein bone conduction ABR 10, 30 and 50 dB nHL stimuli including normative values obtained in the wave latency and IPL violence has been established. Keywords: Bone conduction ABR, Normalization, Age, Gender