[Vestibular toxicity of gentamycin in newborn infants].

Background: Gentamicin known as ototoxic drug is routinely used for treatment of vital infections in neonatologic departments. The aim of the present study is to clarify whether gentamicin has a vestibulotoxic effect when used in therapeutic levels in the newborn phase.
Method: Children were taken on the knees of the mother or relative sitting on an electronically driven rotating chair. The rotatory stimulation consisted of an undamped sinusoidal stimulus pattern which was performed in total darkness. Horizontal and vertical eye movements were recorded electronystagmographically.
Patients: The patient group consisted of 30 children aged between 3.1 and 32.9 months. These children had been treated with gentamicin during the newborn period. A group of 30 healthy children of similar age without gentamicin treatment was the control group.
Results: The statistical means of the nystagmus reactions during sinusoidal rotation were similar in both groups. No increase of spontaneous eye movements was seen in the patients or in the control group.
Conclusions: Gentamicin is an important antibiotic for treatment of life-threatening infectious diseases, which acts less ototoxically in controlled therapeutic doses in newborns than in later childhood or in adults.