[Results from ten years newborn hearing screening in a secondary hospital]

A critical analysis is performed on the results of a newborn hearing screening program in a regional hospital.

Screening results from 14,247 newborns in our maternity ward from 2002 to 2013.

Two step recordings of bilateral otoacoustic emissions (initial and repeat, if failed, at about one month of life). Assessment by clinical brainstem responses.

The first step was performed on 14,015 newborns (98.3% of the total) reaching the screening objective. The first step pass figures were 93.7%, which implies a good pass rate with a few patients to repeat. The second step is also good because it has a pass rate of 88.9% of newborns examined (only 0.63% of initial group needed brainstem responses assessment), but 10.6% were lost to follow up, and that is a major problem. In newborns, scheduled for brainstem responses, the loss to follow-up is worse, with a figure of 29.5%, despite the high accuracy of this test given that 69.4% of those assessed showed hearing loss. This figure represents a 0.31% of the initial group, and is a similar to that published for congenital hearing loss. Including patients that were lost to follow up this figure could be greater.

Newborn hearing screening is useful but needs stronger control to avoid the follow up loss. In order to achieve this, it is crucial to have a good database and a screening coordinator.