Patent ID: 6080112
Filing Date: 2000-06-27
Classification: A61B

Abstract:
A procedure for diagnosing the presence of an acoustic intracanalicular tumor in a patient comprising the steps of:(a) measuring the patient's pure-tone cochlear hearing loss in each ear;(b) recording the patient's auditory brainstem response (ABR) to each of a plurality of auditory stimuli;(c) constructing a plurality of derived ABRs representing cochlear response within respective ones of a plurality of frequency bands;(d) temporally shifting the derived ABRs to align wave V peak amplitudes;(e) summing the temporally shifted derived ABRs;(f) measuring the amplitude of the summed wave V peak;(g) establishing a threshold valve as a function of the patient's inter-aural differential in pure-tone cochlear hearing loss; and(h) diagnosing likely presence of a tumor if the measured amplitude of the summed wave V peak is below the threshold value.