Figure 4. Proposed decision procedure for the genetic diagnosis of familial NSHL.

We have recruited 145 sensorineural hearing loss patients, Among 115 NSHL cases, we started with 32 familial NSHL because we could check the inheritance patterns in the family. First, we excluded 12 cases with typical clinical features by PCR-Sanger sequencing. In the remaining 20 familial NSHL probands, we found candidate SNVs in 13 probands. In further study, we can find SNVs by whole exome sequencing (WES).