Evaluación del programa de detección precoz de hipoacusia en recién nacidos prematuros extremos (RNPE), experiencia Hospital Padre Hurtado

introduction: in july 2005, chile implemented a hearing screening program in newborns under 32 weeks gestational age and/or birth weight less than 1500 g. aim: evaluate the implementation of this program in the hospital padre hurtado, during the period july 2005 and december 2009. material and method: we used automated auditory brainstem response (aabr) in two stages (screening). patients who failed were studied using click auditory brainstem response (abr). for the diagnosis of sensorineural hearing loss (snhl) are considered two abr altered and consistent visual reinforcement audiometry. results: a total of 166 were evaluated vlbw. the reference rate was 7.9% (13 patients), whereas failures in two uni-and bilateral aabr. snhl rate of this population accounted for 1.8%. conclusions: the reference rate (7.9%) and hsn prevalence of the study population (1.8%) is within that described in the literature for high-risk newborns. it suggests a period of research in two phases, a study of patients referred both bilaterally and unilaterally and audiological monitoring of patients previously diagnosed.