Abstract
In order to study the combined effect of age, sex and cochlear hearing loss on the auditory brainstem response in an adult population, absolute wave V latency measurements were made in 117 ears of 64 patients with cochlear hearing loss and 105 ears of 58 otologically normal control subjects. Among normals, wave V latency was found to increase with age. Latencies in female subjects were significantly shorter than in male subjects. The best predictive model for wave V latency in normals was: wave V latency (ms) = 4.982 + 0.007 x age + 0.091 x sex, where age is measured in years and sex is given a value of 1 for females and 2 for males. In patients with hearing loss, wave V latency increase was determined largely by the degree of hearing loss and the effect of age was moderate. The influence of sex was minimal. Wave V latency in patients with hearing loss was predicted by the formula: wave V latency (ms) = 4.911 +0.007 x hearing loss + 0.004 x age + 0.081 x sex. These predictive models can be utilized to accurately estimate expected wave V latency in patients with cochlear hearing loss.