Comparison of cervical vestibular evoked myogenic potentials between late preterm and term infants.

Recent investigations have shown that late preterm infants have increased risk for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, neurosensory impairment, and emotional, behavior and learning problems. Vestibular evoked myogenic potential (VEMP) abnormality may partly contribute to these problems. Our aim was to measure VEMP in late preterm infants and to compare the findings between late preterm and term infants. Seventeen late preterm infants (mean gestational age: 35.11 weeks +/- 0.78) postnatal aged 8 weeks and 17 full-term (mean gestational age: 38.05 weeks +/- 0.96) infants postnatal aged 4 weeks underwent cervical (c)VEMP test without sedation. Mean latencies of p13 were calculated in all study subjects. cVEMPs were elicited in all late preterm and term infants. Mean latencies of p13 in late preterm and term infants were 14.53 and 13.34 ms, respectively. Mean latencies of n23 were determined as 23.18 ms and 19.92 ms for late preterm and term infants, respectively. There were statistically significant differences between late preterm and term infants for latency of p13 (p < 0.001) and latency of n23 (p < 0.000). Abnormal VEMP results might be related to a delay in the maturation of the sacculocollic pathways in late preterm infants.