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Development of an audiological assessment and diagnostic model for high occupational noise exposure

  • Otology
  • Published:
European Archives of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

To explore the diagnostic auditory indicators of high noise exposure and combine them into a diagnostic model of high noise exposure and possible development of hidden hearing loss (HHL).

Methods

We recruited 101 young adult subjects and divided them according to noise exposure history into high-risk and low-risk groups. All subjects completed demographic characteristic collection (including age, noise exposure, self-reported hearing status, and headset use) and related hearing examination.

Results

The 8 kHz (P = 0.039) and 10 kHz (P = 0.005) distortion product otoacoustic emission amplitudes (DPOAE) (DPs) in the high-risk group were lower than those in the low-risk group. The amplitudes of the summating potential (SP) (P = 0.017) and action potential (AP) (P = 0.012) of the electrocochleography (ECochG) in the high-risk group were smaller than those in the low-risk group. The auditory brainstem response (ABR) wave III amplitude in the high-risk group was higher than that in the low-risk group. When SNR = − 7.5 dB (P = 0.030) and − 5 dB (P = 0.000), the high-risk group had a lower speech discrimination score than that of the low-risk group. The 10 kHz DPOAE DP, ABR wave III amplitude and speech discrimination score under noise with SNR = − 5 dB were combined to construct a combination diagnostic indicator. The area under the ROC curve was 0.804 (95% CI 0.713–0.876), the sensitivity was 80.39%, and the specificity was 68.00%.

Conclusions

We expect that high noise exposure can be detected early with this combined diagnostic indicator to prevent HHL or sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL).

Trial registration number/date of registration

ChiCTR2200057989, 2022/3/25.

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Data availability

The data used to support the findings of this study are available on request to the corresponding author: Lian-Jun Lu, E-mail: lulianj@fmmu.edu.cn.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank all participants for their time during this study.

Funding

This work was supported by funding from the Military Logistics Research Project of China [18CXZ015].

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Author notes

  1. Hao Yuan, Peng-Wei Ma, Jia-Wei Chen have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery, Tangdu Hospital, Fourth Military Medical University, Xi’an, China

    Hao Yuan, Peng-Wei Ma, Jia-Wei Chen, Wei-Long Wang, Wei Gao, Pei-Heng Lu, Xue-Rui Ding, Yu-Qiang Lun & Lian-Jun Lu

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  1. Hao Yuan
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by P-WM, J-WC, W-LW, WG, P-HL, X-RD, Y-QL. The first draft of the manuscript was written by HY, P-WM, J-WC and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lian-Jun Lu.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Ethics approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. The study was approved by the Bioethics Committee of Tangdu Hospital of Air Force Military Medical University (No. K202112-16).

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Yuan, H., Ma, PW., Chen, JW. et al. Development of an audiological assessment and diagnostic model for high occupational noise exposure. Eur Arch Otorhinolaryngol 280, 2763–2772 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00405-022-07787-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00405-022-07787-9

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