A study of audiometry in patients with abnormal wave II of brainstem auditory evoked potentials

The importance of absolute peak II and interpeak I-II latencies of brainstem auditory evoked potentials (BAEPs) was ignored due to their low amplitude and irregular presence. We retrospectively surveyed 11 patients who had abnormal wave II of BAEPs in our hospital. All had normal absolute peak I but abnormal peak II latencies. Audiometry data were collected for further correlation. All audiometry examinations showed abnormalities. Ten patients (91%) presented with sensorineural hearing loss and one patient (9%) showed mixed type hearing loss. Nine of these patients had normal interpeak I-III latency and had been considered to be normal BAEP examination before. We concluded that the absolute peak II latency also played an important role in localizing the auditory nerve lesions.