The auditory brain stem response interaural latency difference (ILD) in patients with brain stem lesions.

The ABR interaural latency difference (ILD) from 15 patients with brain stem lesions was compared to the ILDs from patients with VIIIth nerve tumors, cochlear pathology, and a normal control group. All patients in the study had to meet the criteria of bilaterally symmetrical hearing for pure-tone thresholds in order to offset the effect of hearing loss on the ILD. Although the ILDs for the brain stem lesion group were larger than for the cochlear or normal groups, they were significantly smaller than for the VIIIth nerve tumor group. It appears that the ILD is not as sensitive a measure for detecting brain stem involvement as VIIIth nerve tumors.