New Frontiers in Universal Hearing Screening: Genetic Screening featuring Eliot Shearer, MD

The newborn hearing screening system known as the Early Hearing Detection and Intervention or EHDI system is lauded as one of the most significant public health achievements of that last several decades.  Approximately 3 in 1000 children are identified with a permanent hearing loss as a result of newborn screening.   Despite the significance of this programmatic achievement it is estimated that the number of children with permanent hearing loss doubles in a few short years following the newborn period. Promising Methods now exist that would allow us to identify many of these children who will develop a hearing loss subsequent to the newborn period. During this episode of EarWorm, we will discuss how the existing newborn hearing screening protocol could be expanded and potentially identify children who may be among those who could develop hearing loss in subsequent months or years after the newborn period. Host: William Eiserman, Ph.D.