Intraoperative BAER Monitoring in Cerebellopontine Angle Surgery

Predictive value of intraoperative brainstem auditory evoked responses in surgery for conductive hearing losses

Samuel H. Selesnick, Jonathan D. Victor, Ravinder K. Tikoo, and David J. Eisenmann

American Journal of Otology 18, 2-9 (1997)

Abstract

Objective: To assess the efficacy of intraoperative Brainstem Auditory Evoked Responses (BAER) in predicting postoperative hearing improvement in surgery for conductive hearing loss.

Study Design: Prospective study of consecutive patients undergoing surgery for conductive hearing loss under general anesthesia by a single surgeon.

Setting: Tertiary care university affiliated medical center.

Patients: All consenting patients undergoing surgery for conductive hearing loss by the senior author between June 25, 1993 and March 20, 1995.

Interventions: Pre- and post-reconstruction intraoperative BAERs; pre- and post-operative pure tone and speech audiometry.

Main outcome measures: Changes in audiometric puretone air-conduction thresholds, bone-air gaps, and Speech Reception Thresholds, compared with changes in BAER wave five (V) latencies.

Results: A decrease in the wave V latency on the intraoperative BAER correlates significantly with improvement in postoperative puretone air-conduction, bone-air gap, and SRT using chi-squared and linear regression analyses. Conclusions: Intraoperative BAER can reliably predict the success of an ossicular reconstruction under general anesthesia.


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