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cal practice, it is inevitable that standards will in fact influence clinical practice. The scientific literature should serve as the basis for both standards develop- ment and for clinical practice. A hot topic in clinical research these days is evidence-based practice. This means that our clinical practices should be dic- tated by a body of evidence supporting the use of specific practices and/or pro- cedures. Evidence-based practice is also relevant to the development of ANSI standards. In the case of air calorics and ANSI S3.45, there are no published stud- ies comparing the results of air and water calorics in a large number of subjects including both those with normal vestibular function as well as those with various clinical problems. When such studies are available, it should be clear whether air calorics should be used clin- ically. Further, this published data should resolve this issue for some future revision of ANSI S3.45. Clinical practice and standards development should both be data driven. In the absence of ade- quate clinical data, decisions concerning both clinical practice and standards development are problematic. On the other hand, both efforts are works in progress, and as the requisite clinical data emerges, both clinical practice and ANSI standards evolve.
References
1. ANSI S3.6-2004, American National Standard Specification for Audiometers (Acoustical Society of America, Melville, NY, 2004).
2. ANSI S3.21-2004, American National Standard Methods for Manual Pure-Tone Threshold Audiometry (Acoustical Society of America, Melville, NY, 2004).
3. ANSI S3.45-1999, American National Standard Procedures for Testing Basic Vestibular Function (Acoustical Society of America, Melville, NY, 2004).
Robert Burkard, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Communicative Disorders and Sciences and Otolaryngology at the University at Buffalo. He is cur- rently the Chair of Accredited Standards Committee S3, Bioacoustics. He is a certified clinical audiologist.
Robert F. Burkard (on right) and Paprika
S3/WG 35, Audiometers, is seeking a few clinical audiologists to participate in the next revision of ANSI S3.21-2004 American National Standard Methods for Pure-Tone Threshold Audiometry. Clinicians interested in participating in this working group should contact the Working Group Chair, R.L. Grason at grason@mindspring.com. Please copy the Secretariat (sblaeser@aip.org).
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