BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: 'Partial deafness' characterized by normal or slightly impaired hearing in the low frequency band and nearly total deafness in the high frequency range, is difficult to assess with conventional behavioral tests in infants and young children. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the usefulness of objective hearing tests, such as auditory brainstem response (ABR) and auditory steady state response (ASSR) in evaluating patients with partial deafness. SUBJECTS AND METHOD: One hundred thirty three patients who underwent ASSR in Ajou University Hospital from January 2008 to January 2013 were enrolled to this study. Correlations between ASSR, ABR and pure tone audiometry (PTA) thresholds were analyzed. RESULTS: ASSR thresholds of 133 patients were highly correlated with both ABR and PTA thresholds in majority of the tested frequencies. Partial deafness was detected in 9 out of 133 patients, based on the results of PTA and ASSR. ASSR thresholds of patients with partial deafness were significantly correlated with PTA thresholds in all frequencies, with especially high correlation found at 1 and 4 kHz. However, there was no significant correlation between ASSR and ABR thresholds. ABR thresholds of partial deafness patients were measured at 65 dB in one patient, 70-90 dB in 3 patients, and no response at 90 dB in 5 patients, respectively. In 8 (6%) out of 124 patients, ABR thresholds were measurable with profound hearing loss and residual hearing was observed at low frequencies. CONCLUSION: ASSR is useful for predicting residual hearing at low frequencies of infants and young children for whom assessment of hearing is difficult using conventional behavioral tests.
Audiometry ; Child ; Deafness* ; Evoked Potentials, Auditory, Brain Stem ; Hearing Loss ; Hearing Tests* ; Hearing* ; Humans ; Infant ; Mass Screening*

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: MarkeTrak Survey is designed to evaluate the sociodemographic and HA factors of hearing aid (HA) users and their satisfaction of use. The questionnaire is inconvenient to use because it asked too many questions and requires long time to answer. The purpose of this study was to develop a simplified ("Ajou") version of MarkeTrak Survey and to evaluate its reliability. SUBJECTS AND METHOD: Forty-five HA users who visited the Ajou Hearing Center from 2014 to 2015 were included in the present study. To examine the correlation of the Korean version and the Ajou version of MarkeTrak Survey, 42 patients completed each survey simultaneously. To examine the reliability of Ajou version, test-retest and internal consistency methods were used. For the test-retest method, 22 HA users repeated the survey 2-4 weeks later. RESULTS: The newly developed "Ajou" version of MarkeTrak Survey consisted of 12 questions and was more simplified. Most of the questions of the two surveys showed significant correlation coefficient values (Spearman correlation, p<0.05). For the test-retest method, most questions showed significant correlation coefficient values (Spearman correlation, p<0.05), but they showed lower values than 0.6 in many cases. It showed high internal consistency of overall HA satisfaction. CONCLUSION: The Ajou version may be used as a simplified and alternative questionnaire for the Korean version of MarkeTrak Survey.
Hearing Aids* ; Hearing* ; Humans ; Methods

PURPOSE: Experimental studies have implicated the wild type p53 in cellular response to radiation. Whether altered p53 function can lead to changes in clinical radiocurability remains an area of ongoing study. This study was performed to investigate whether any correlation between change of p53 and outcome of curative radiation therapy in patients with head and neck cancers. METHODS: Immunohistochemical analysis with a mouse monoclonal antibody (D0-7) specific for human p53 was used to detect to overexpression of protein in formalin fixed, paraffin-embedded tumor sample from 55 head and neck cancer patients treated with curative radiation therapy (median dose of 7020 cGy) from February 1988 to March 1996 at St. Mary's Hospital. Overexpression of p53 was correlated with locoregional control and survival using Kaplan-Meier method. A Cox regression multivariate analysis was performed that included all clinical variables and status of p53 expression. RESULTS: Thirty-seven (67.2%) patients showed overexpression of p53 by immunohistochemical staining in their tumor. One hundred percent of oral cavity, 76% of laryngeal, 66.7% of oropharyngeal, 66.7% of hypopharyngeal cancer showed p53 overexpression (P=0.05). The status of p53 had significant relationship with stage of disease (P=0.03) and history of smoking (P=0.001). The overexpression of p53 was not predictive of response rate to radiation therapy. The locoregional control was not significantly affected by p53 status. Overexpression of p53 didn't have any prognostic implication for disease free survival and overall survival. Primary site and stage of disease were significant prognostic factors for survival. CONCLUSIONS: The p53 overexpression as detected by immunohistochemical staining had significant correaltion with stage, primary site of disease and smoking habit of patients. The p53 overexpression didn't have any predictive value for outcome of curative radiation therapy in a group of head and neck cancers.
Animals ; Disease-Free Survival ; Formaldehyde ; Head and Neck Neoplasms ; Head* ; Humans ; Hypopharyngeal Neoplasms ; Mice ; Mouth ; Multivariate Analysis ; Neck* ; Smoke ; Smoking