The presence of unusual bone conduction thresholds in pure tone audiometry

In pure tone audiometry (PTA), the widely used transducer for bone conduction (BC) testing is Radioear B71. Nevertheless, the BC thresholds obtained with this bone vibrator can be questionable and invalid due to its technical limitations. In this study, we report a case where "abnormally good" BC thresholds were noted at low frequencies, possibly due to the occurrence of harmonic distortions by this transducer. In clinical settings, due to the technical limitations of the BC vibrator, it is imperative for hearing health-care professionals to properly interpret the BC results in PTA. Ultimately, having newly designed transducers (with low harmonic distortions) in clinical settings is advantageous to obtain a more accurate hearing diagnosis.