Changes in endolymphatic hydrops in patients with Ménière’s disease treated conservatively for more than 1 year

Abstract

Conclusion: This study revealed that endolymphatic hydrops (EH) reduced in some cases with Ménière’s disease (MD) treated conservatively. It appears that the EH reduction was associated with improvement of the clinical symptoms. Objectives: The relationship between the degree of EH and clinical symptoms is not clear at present. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the time course of the relationship in patients with MD treated conservatively. Patients: Twelve patients with MD treated conservatively for more than 1 year in a university hospital. Methods: Twenty ears of 12 patients with MD treated conservatively were evaluated. The presence or absence of vertigo, tinnitus and ear fullness was confirmed when magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was performed. Using a 3 T MRI scanner, three-dimensional fluid-attenuated inversion recovery (3D-FLAIR) MRI was performed 2 or 3 times 24 hours after intra-tympanic gadolinium injection or 4 hours after intravenous gadolinium injection. Results: In the three ears in which the symptoms alleviated, EH was reduced in two ears, but EH was reduced in only one of 17 ears in which the symptoms did not alleviate. The Fisher exact test revealed that EH reduction occurred more frequently in ears with alleviation of the symptoms (p < 0.05).

Keywords:

• Ear fullness
• magnetic resonance imaging
• tinnitus
• vertigo

Acknowledgements

This study was supported by research grants from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare in Japan. This study was also supported from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology in Japan (Kiban B-21390460, 25293263, Kiban C-25462634 and Young Scientists B-25861548).

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.