The evaulation of auditory functions in hydrocephalic pediatric patients before and after ventriculoperitoneal shunt surgery

The most common encountered patients are hydrocephalic patients in the practice of pediatric neurosurgery. Hydrocephalic patients with regard to the objective evaluation of hearing; comprising a sufficient number and the number of patients with high level of scientific evidence has not been found any work when searching the literature. So, hydrocephalic patients after ventriculoperitoneal shunt surgery regarding hearing function is altered in the direction of auditory evoked brainstem response (ABR) test evaluated through, was aimed to assess the results. Ventriculoperitoneal shunt surgery performed 20 hydrocephalic newborn patients (13 female, 7 male) were included in this study. For each patient, 1 day prior to the operation, again on day 7 and on day 90 after operation, ABR testing were performed. 90 dB nHL, 70 dB nHL, 50 dB nHL and 30 dB nHL click stimuli was achieved against the auditory brainstem responses in wave V. latencies and I-III, I-IV between the waves latency times for both ears were recorded. Variance analysis for parametric data and the post hoc Tukey's HSD test were used to demonstrate the relationship between results obtained from different recording periods. Statistical significance was set when p<0,05 or when the 95% confidence interval. The mean values of the ABR tests of patients taken into account, comparing between the preoperatively and the late stage results for all the nerve conduction velocity of 0,2 ms was found to be a faster transmission. These results at 90 and 50 dB tested in the period between the comparison is made meaningful unaccompanied statically (p> 0.05), but at 70 and 30 dB when compared with the statistically significant results were achieved (p <0.05). Irreversible brain parenchymal damage, cognitive disorders, mental-motor retardation, particularly sensorineural hearing loss resulting such as learning language and inability to speak sequelae causing hydrocephalic patients shouldn't be delayed for the diagnosis and treatment as soon as possible. Key words: Hydrocephalus, Hearing, Brainstem evoked auditory response, Ventriculoperitoneal shunt surgery