[Diagnostic value of auditory brainstem evoked potentials (ABP) in high risk premature and newborn infants].

In this work we have studied 37 children, both preterm and term, belonging ti high risk group of contracting hearing loss, in order to confirm the predictability of ABR in the diagnostic of the congenital hearing losses during the prenatal period and so make possible their immediate and proper rehabilitation. With this purpose we have studied parameters such as threshold, latency of waves and intervals. We have discovered that in preterm children, owing to reasons such as answers of little amplitude, movements of the children and difficulty to determine the gestational age, the parameters of normality are only the existence or not of waves, discarding the value of the threshold and the latency of waves. We have had to wait for 40 weeks to obtain ABR similar to the ones in adults, in which the threshold, latency of waves and intervals are certain to predict hearing. In spite of it all we have to agree that ABR are the best hearing test at those ages. We must not forget that normal ABR could include lesions in the upper part of hearing pathway.