Patient-reported measures of hearing loss and tinnitus in pediatric cancer and hematopoietic stem cell transplantation: A systematic review

Purpose: We identified studies that described use of any patient-reported outcome scale for hearing loss or tinnitus among children and adolescents and young adults (AYAs) with cancer or hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) recipients. Method: In this systematic review, we performed electronic searches of OvidSP MEDLINE, EMBASE, and PsycINFO to August 2015. We included studies if they used any patient-reported scale of hearing loss or tinnitus among children and AYAs with cancer or HSCT recipients. Only English language publications were included. Two reviewers identified studies and abstracted data. Results: There were 953 studies screened; 6 met eligibility criteria. All studies administered hearing patient-reported outcomes only once, after therapy completion. None of the studies described the psychometric properties of the hearing-specific component. Three instruments (among 6 studies) were used: Health Utilities Index (Barr et al., 2000; Fu et al., 2006; Kennedy et al., 2014), Hearing Measurement Scales (Einar-Jon et al., 2011; Einarsson et al., 2011), and the Tinnitus Questionnaire for Auditory Brainstem Implant (Soussi & Otto, 1994). All had limitations, precluding routine use for hearing assessment in this population. Conclusions: We identified few studies that included hearing patient-reported measures for children and AYA cancer and HSCT patients. None are ideal to take forward into future studies. Future work should focus on the creation of a new psychometrically sound instrument for hearing outcomes in this population.