Effect of long-term betahistine treatment on the clinical outcomes of patients with cochlear Meniere’s disease

Abstract

Background

Many studies have discussed the betahistine treatment for Meniere’s disease (MD). However, regarding cochlear MD, there is no consensus on the long-term betahistine treatment.

Aims/objectives

This study aims to investigate the relationship between the betahistine treatment duration in patients with cochlear MD and their clinical outcomes.

Material and Methods

We enrolled 78 patients with 96 ears who were diagnosed with cochlear MD and received the treatment for more than 6 months. Outcomes included the hearing status, frequency of acute hearing loss attack, and whether the disease progressed to MD. Clinical characteristics including age, sex, side of affected ear, treatment duration of betahistine and trichlormethiazide, and pre-treatment hearing level was recorded from medical charts.

Results

Comparing the clinical characteristics by outcomes, the average betahistine treatment duration was the independent factor for hearing status of four-tone average (p = 0.01) and low-tone average (p = 0.03). Patients with average betahistine treatment duration of at least 277 days per year had higher odds ratio for improvement of the hearing status of four-tone and low-tone average.

Conclusions

For patients with cochlear MD, regular and long-term betahistine treatment can benefit their hearing outcome in the low- and medium-frequency.

Chinese Abstract

背景

已有多项研究讨论了用于梅尼埃病 (MD) 的贝他司汀治疗。然而, 对于用于耳蜗MD的贝他司汀长期治疗, 尚无共识。

目的

研究用于耳蜗 MD 患者的贝他司汀治疗持续时间与其临床结果之间的关系。

材料和方法

我们招募了 78 名患者, 其96 只耳朵被诊断为耳蜗 MD。他们接受了 6 个月以上的治疗。结果包括听力状况、急性听力损失发作频率以及疾病是否发展为 MD。临床特征, 包括年龄、性别、患耳侧、贝他司汀和三氯噻嗪的治疗持续时间以及治疗前听力水平, 均从病历中记录下来。

结果

通过针对不同的结果来比较临床特征, 平均贝他司汀治疗时间是四音平均听力状态(p = 0.01)和低音平均听力状态(p = 0.03)的独立影响因素。对于平均每年至少接受 277 天贝他司汀治疗的患者, 四音平均听力状态和低音平均听力状态改善的几率较高。

结论

对于耳蜗MD患者, 定期长期接受贝他司汀治疗可改善其低频和中频听力结果。

Keywords:

• acute hearing loss
• betahistine
• cochlear Meniere’s disease
• Meniere’s disease
• sensorineural hearing loss

Ethical approval

This study was approved by the institutional ethical review board of Far Eastern Memorial Hospital (No.109028-E).

Data availability statements

The data set is available in the supplement (S1 Table).

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no potential conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Far Eastern Memorial Hospital Research Program (Grant numbers [FEMH-2020-C-048]).