Congenital deafness and haemolytic disease of the newborn.

The association of deafness with haemolytic disease of the newborn has been reported by several authors in the past few years. Goodhill (1950) attempted a follow-up of 46 cases of haemolytic disease of the newborn. Of the 15 cases he managed to trace, two showed a significant degree of perceptive deafness. In a further investigation he obtained birth histories from the mothers of 904 severely deaf children, and amongst these he found 27 probable, four possible and nine doubtful cases of isoimmunization. Crabtree and Gerrard (1950) recorded 16 cases of perceptive deafness associated with kernikterus. Gerrard (1952) carried out a retrospective inquiry on 407 deaf school children. Information was obtainable from the parents of 360 and of these 33 were jaundiced in early infancy, five of them showing evidence of iso-immunization involving the Rh system with mild neurological signs. Johnsen and Freiesleben (1952), during routine examination of school children, found 50 cases of high-frequency deafness in which other known causes did not appear to be operative. In 10 of these there was Rh incompatibility between mother and child, and maternal antibodies were demonstrated in five. Evans and Polani (1950) examined 16 cases in which there were neurological sequelae to Rh iso-immunization. Of these, five (30%) were deaf. The object of the present paper is to record the results of a retrospective inquiry on a large number of deaf patients with a view to ascertaining what proportion might be associated with iso-immunization in the mothers of these cases during pregnancy. The pattern of deafness has also been studied in such cases and compared with cases of perceptive deafness due to other causes.