Objective To study the clinical characteristicsand prognosis in pediatric sudden sensorineural hearing loss and provide guidance for clinical practice.Methods We retrospectively analyzed the clinical data of 23 pediatric sudden sensorineural hearing loss patients (25 ears) treated in our department during the past 9 years (from January 2008 to October 2016).Comparatively we looked into those related factors (age,gender,ear side,treatment onset,initial hearing threshold,virus infection history,audiogram configuration,presence of tinnitus,vertigo,ear fullness and recovery) between pediatric patients and 202 adult patients (219 ears).Results Pediatric patients comprised 10.2 ％ of pediatric/adult cases of sudden sensorineural hearing loss.The average hearing threshold (87.7± 16.1 dB),rate of presence of vertigo (48.0％) and rate of virus infectionin in the pediatric group,were significantly higher than those of in the adult group (P＜0.05).Tinnitus occurred in 80％ of pediatric patients,and 96 ％ of the audiogram configurations showed total deafness curves and flat lines.After positive treatment,the overall recovery rate of the pediatric and the adult group were 52.0％ and 46.6％,and the rate of complete recovery was 4.0％ and 14.2％,respectively.The difference was not statistically significant (P＞0.05).Conclusion Pediatric sudden sensorineural hearing loss was generally identified as severe hearing loss with a high rate of presence of tinnitus and vertigo,and most audiogram configurations were total deafness in fiat lines.Virus infection probably is one of the primary etiologies for sudden sensorineural hearing loss in children.