Diagnostic vetting of individuals with asymmetric sensorineural hearing impairments

Audiological and vestibular tests were administered conjointly in a neurological or general ORL clinic to exclude cerebellopontine angle (CPA) tumours. This study aimed to assess the efficiency of various tests in achieving that exclusion with the minimum of unnecessary investigations. All patients received the full battery of auditory brainstem responses, acoustic reflex thresholds and decay, alternate binaural loudness balance and ENG and caloric testing. All patients who did not have normal auditory brainstem responses proceeded to high resolution CT scanning. One hundred and fifteen patients were investigated and four acoustic neuromas were diagnosed. The efficiency of these tests in a general ORL clinic is very much poorer than often suggested, due largely to the number of occasions on which the tests cannot be done, and to the very small proportion of the test population who have CPA tumours.