SLC26A4 and deafness: In 2023, the current authors’ research team ascertained the advantage of a screening chip including 15 variants of four genes and found that 71.43% of newborns with two variants of the SLC26A4 gene were screened for newly added mutations and 28.57% of newborns with two variants of the SLC26A4 gene passed the hearing screening, suggesting that a screening chip including 15 variants of four genes was superior at early detection of hearing loss, especially in early identification of newborns with deafness-causing mutations in the SLC26A4 gene (71).