[Hearing and treatment of neonates with gentamycin]

The authors examined two groups of children treated during neonatal period with high doses of Gentamycin. The reasons for Gentamycin treatment at the intensive care unit were infection of the CNS, pneumopaties, intracranial haemorrhagiae, cerebral oedema and other causes. The first group of children was treated in 1981, the second one in 1986. Both groups were examined in 1987. All children were evaluated to objective hearing tests, impedance audiometry by acoustically evoked potentials of the brain stem. Children of the first group examined during their fifth or sixth year were also submitted to a hearing test. The control group was formed by children born in 1986 treated at the intensive care unit with similar indications but who were not given Gentamycin. A total of 51 children were examined. Twenty-two children examined at the age of five had no hearing impairment. Acoustically evoked potentials of the brain stem have a wide variability which may be the manifestation of the disease which led to admission to the intensive care unit. Therefore it should be conceived as a screening examination and the revealed pathological findings should be verified by repeated examinations. Possible hearing disorders should be confirmed at a later age by conventional examinations.