Menière’s Disease and Tinnitus

Extract

Over the last almost year and a half, a lot of people have offered dissertations on the possible etiology of tinnitus in Menière's disease (everything from changes in DC potential, deformation of the basilar membrane, change relationship between the outer hair cells and the tectorial membrane) so I’m not going to spend a great deal of time reiterating all of that. What I’d like to tell you is that Menière's disease is an unusual disease process. You have to remember that it's subject to spontaneous remissions and exacerbations. And not only are the symptoms of tinnitus subject to those same remissions and exacerbations, but so also are the other symptoms, of vertigo and hearing loss. I think all of you are familiar with the classic audiometric presentation of patients with Menière's disease. We at Temple have been investigating almost all of our patients with uni- laterality of hearing loss with BSER, and it's been our experience that, in patients with endolymphatic hydrops, there is no change in the BSER pattern, particularly with reference to the intra-aural latencies.