指尖血流量測定による新生児聴覚スクリーニング

The detection of infant hearing disorders is quite crucial, because an early detection may lead to a proper treatment and to a prevention of developmental loss of auditory function in some cases. Although several screening methods for infant hearing loss have been tried so far, a definitive test with a sufficient reproducibility and reliability is yet to come at this moment. For some time it is known that the blood flow of the finger tip changes after sound stimulation. So in this study, blood flow at the infants' finger tip is measured before and after a sound stimulation employing a Laser Doppler flowmeter, and Crib-O-Gram testing is also performed at the same time. Efficiency as a screening measure for infant hearing loss has been compared between these two methods. So far, sixty infants have been tested. No false positive case has been found by use of the blood flow method, although eleven false positive cases have been observed using Crib-O-Gram testing only. Our results seem to suggest that this newly developed method can be a more accurate screening procedure for the infant hearing loss.