Results of combined newborn hearing and deafness gene screening in Yuncheng area of Shanxi Province

Abstract

To analyze the clinical significance of combined newborn hearing and deafness gene screening in Yuncheng area of Shanxi Province. Results of audiological examinations, including transient evoked otoacoustic emission and automatic discriminative auditory brainstem evoked potentials, for 6 723 newborns born in Yuncheng area from January 1, 2021 to December 31, 2021, were retrospectively analyzed. Those who failed one of the tests were considered to have failed the examination. A deafness-related gene testing kit was used to detect 15 hot spot variants of common deafness-associated genes in China including GJB2, SLC26A4, GJB3, and mtDNA12S rRNA. Neonates who had passed the audiological examinations and those who had not were compared using a chi-square test. Among the 6 723 neonates, 363 (5.40%) were found to carry variants. These have included 166 cases (2.47%) with GJB2 gene variants, 136 cases (2.03%) with SLC26A4 gene variants, 26 cases (0.39%) with mitochondrial 12S rRNA gene variants, and 33 cases (0.49%) with GJB3 gene variants. Among the 6 723 neonates, 267 had failed initial hearing screening, among which 244 had accepted a re-examination, for which 14 cases (5.73%) had failed again. This has yielded an approximate prevalence of hearing disorder of 0.21% (14/6 723). Among 230 newborns who had passed the re-examination, 10 (4.34%) were found to have carried a variant. By contrast, 4 out of the 14 neonates (28.57%) who had failed the re-examination had carried a variant, and there was a significant difference between the two groups (P < 0.05). Genetic screening can provide an effective supplement to newborn hearing screening, and the combined screening can provide a best model for the prevention of hearing loss, which can enable early detection of deafness risks, targeted prevention measures, and genetic counseling to provide accurate prognosis for the newborns.