Diagnostic Accuracy of the Hum Test in Unilateral Hearing Loss

Abstract

Context: There is a need for a quick reliable home test for detecting hearing loss (HL), especially in the present era of telemedicine. Hum test is one such which can be performed easily without instruments but not much documented in the literature. Aims: The aim is to find out the diagnostic accuracy of hum test in detecting unilateral HL. Settings and Design: Tertiary healthcare center, prospective, cross-sectional diagnostic test accuracy study. Subjects and Methods: The study included 85 controls and 85 patients with unilateral conductive or sensorineural HL (SNHL). The patients were divided into four groups-controls, simulated unilateral conductive HL (CHL) subjects, unilateral CHL, and SNHL patients. They underwent 4 tests-Weber test, Low pitch hum test, High pitch hum test, and pure-tone audiometry (PTA), the latter being the gold standard. Statistical Analysis Used: To test the statistical significance of the agreement between the hum test and the Weber test with PTA, McNemar's Chi-square test was used. Diagnostic measures such as sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, and accuracy were computed. Results: The sensitivity (85%) and accuracy (95.2%) of Hum test were better in comparison to Weber test (70% and 88.8% respectively) in unilateral sensorineural patients. However, in the case of CHL the Weber test was more sensitive in comparison with hum test (95.6% and 83.35% respectively). Overall, the diagnostic accuracy of hum test was 92.5% when compared to the Weber test (93.5%). Conclusions: Hum test can be used as a reliable screening tool for suspected sudden HL cases.