Stacked auditory brainstem response (Stacked ABR) : a normative study in Thai normal hearing adults

Abstract

Stacked auditory brainstem response (Stacked ABR) is an auditory evoked response that is used to identify a small auditory tumor with greater accuracy and sensitivity than the standard ABR. This method uses the effects of ipsilateral high pass noise masking on cochlear response time. It is a combination of several traditional ABRs stacked into one single response, which represents the cochlea completely, from base to apex. This study measured the amplitude of the stacked wave V alignment in normal hearing subjects, the differences in amplitude of the stacked wave V alignment between male and female subjects and also between the left and right ears. The subjects consisted of Thai normal hearing adults (15 males and 15 females) who were randomly selected for this study. The mean ages of males and females were 30 years and 29.73 years, respectively. The mean and SD of wave V amplitude of stacked ABR were 1.98 ±0.56 microvolts (µV). The mean and SD of wave V amplitude of stacked ABR in males and females were 1.83 ±0.51 and 2.14 ±0.58 µV, respectively, which are regarded as statistically significant at p-value < 0.05. The mean and SD of wave V amplitude of stacked ABR in male and female left ears were 1.77 ±0.60 and 2.07 ±0.71 µV, respectively, without a statistically significant difference. The mean and SD of wave V amplitude of stacked ABR in male and female right ears were 1.88 ±0.41 and 2.20 ±0.41 µV, respectively, which are regarded as statistically significant at p-value < 0.05. The mean and SD of wave V amplitude of stacked ABR in left and right ears were 1.92 ± 0.66 and 2.04 ±0.44 µV, respectively, without a statistically significant difference.