New technology to detect deafness in children

University of Iowa researchers and their colleagues at Baylor College of Medicine have developed and announced a new screening technology, called OtoSCOPE, which will allow scientists to simultaneously screen all 54 genes known to cause hearing loss in new born children. This is an important breakthrough, considering that recent statistics from the Changi General Hospital show that hearing loss affects a huge proportion of young people, with 40 per cent of those diagnosed with hearing loss being younger than 40 years old.





Previously, pinpointing the exact genetic cause of inherited deafness involved looking at one gene at a time, costing roughly $1,000 per gene (it would cost around $75,000 to test all known deafness-causing genes).





The new technology will mean that families who wish to learn the likelihood that their future children will have hearing loss will be able to gain this information much more quickly and cheaply. It will also give them more preparation time to determine treatment options for the child.





Eliot Shearer, a University of Iowa Ph.D. student who worked on the discovery, says that "knowing which gene mutation causes the hearing loss can give families information on how severe the deafness will be and the chance of having another child with the disorder. It can also help doctors find the best treatment – such as hearing aids or cochlear implants."





The new discovery will also have other benefits for treating hearing loss in children, especially for children whose deafness is part of a syndrome which entails other problems, such as Usher Syndrome, the most common cause of deaf-blindness in the United States. In these cases, "early intervention can help slow vision loss", said Dr. Michael Hildebrand, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Iowa and a co-author of the report.





Of course, there is a wide range of different hearing impairments, including partial hearing loss, single sided deafness, tinnitus, and total hearing loss, and research is constantly under way into early detection programs for these kinds of hearing problems.







Sources





redorbit.com/news/health/1952625/high_tech_genetic_sequencing_enables_screening_for_hereditary_hearing_loss/


eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-11/uoi--ntc111510.php