Sensorineural hearing loss in children recovered from purulent meningitis: a study in Thai children at Ramathibodi Hospital.

Hearing loss is one of the serious complications of bacterial meningitis. Conventional audiometry and auditory brainstem response (ABR) methods were used to detect this complication in eighteen children who recovered from bacterial meningitis treated at Ramathibodi Hospital from January 1983 to December 1987. Six patients (33%) were found to have persistent bilateral sensorineural hearing loss. Among them, the causes of meningitis were: Hemophilus influenzae (3 patients), Streptococcus pneumoniae (1 patient), Streptococcus agalactiae (1 patient) and Escherichia coli (1 patient). Various clinical and demographic factors were examined in relation to the hearing loss, but no significant correlation was observed. Since meningitis often affects small children and makes conventional audiometry tests difficult, ABR was found to be a more effective method for testing this group of patients.