Are cervical vestibular evoked myogenic potentials sensitive to changes in the vestibular system associated with benign paroxysmal positional vertigo?

Abstract

Objective: This study aimed to correct the notion regarding the efficacy of cervical vestibular evoked myogenic potentials (cVEMP) in identifying benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV)-associated changes in the peripheral vestibular system. Study design: A static group comparison research design was used to compare the cVEMP results of a group of individuals with BPPV in the age range of 30–60 years against age- and gender-matched healthy individuals. The cVEMP were recorded with tone bursts of 500 Hz gated using a Blackman window. The 95dB nHL tone bursts were presented at the rate of 5.1 Hz. The response was band-pass filtered between 10 and 1500 Hz and amplified by a factor of 5000. The response window was set to 70 ms, which was inclusive of a 15-ms pre-stimulus recording. Results: Responses were analysed for individual peak latencies, peak-to-peak amplitudes, and asymmetry ratio and compared between the groups using mixed analysis of variance and an independent samples t-test. The results revealed no significant difference in the latencies of P13 and N23 (p > 0.05). There was also a lack of difference for peak-to-peak amplitude and asymmetry ratio between the two groups (p > 0.05). Conclusion: There was no difference in the latency or amplitude measures between healthy individuals and the individuals with BPPV, which undermines the utility of cVEMP in identifying changes associated with BPPV in the peripheral vestibular system.

Key words::

• cVEMP
• BPPV
• asymmetry ratio

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