Auditory complaints and audiologic assessment in children with surgically repaired cleft lip and palate

INTRODUCTION  At the initial consultation, the speech-language pathologist and audiologist may consider possible diagnostic hypotheses based on the child's history and the parents' complaint. AIM  To investigate the association of hearing complaints with the findings obtained in the conventional audiologic assessment in children with cleft lip and palate. Retrospective study. METHODS  We analyzed medical charts of 1000 patients with cleft lip and palate who underwent surgical repair between 1988 and 1995 at a mean age of 6 years 8 months. We excluded charts with records of inconsistent audiological responses and charts with missing data for any of the audiologic evaluations considered. Thus, the sample consisted of 393 records. RESULTS  Two hundred thirty-nine patients presented hearing loss in one or both ears, but only 3.8% reported hearing complaints. The most frequent were otorrhea followed by otalgia. There was no statistical significance between the complaint and gender (p = 0.26) nor between the complaint and hearing loss (p = 0.83). CONCLUSION  This study showed no association between the hearing complaint and the conventional audiologic assessment.