A longitudinal study of unilateral Ménière’s disease and clinical
evolutionary models Ménière’s based on the vertigo episodes.
Abstract
INTRODUCTION: The variability in symptomatic evolution of vertiginous
crisis in Ménière’s disease (MD) is just one more fact that indicates
the great heterogeneity attributed to MD. Recently, these variations and
differences between patients are being defined by different subtypes of
MD. OBJECTIVES: We have defined subtypes of MD based on the evolution of
vertigo crisis in the first 10 years of the disease, in addition to
defining the natural history of Unilateral MD (UMD) in our environment.
DESIGN: A longitudinal descriptive study of patients with UMD was
carried out. In a subgroup of patients followed from the onset of the
disease, three subtypes or models of UMD were defined according to the
individual review and our experience according to the vertiginous crisis
suffered the first 10 years of the disease. In these models a
differential behavior has been studied attending to different variables
analyzed. RESULTS: Data were collected from 327 patients with UMD, of
which 87 were followed from the onset of the disease. In this subgroup,
patients were grouped in 3 models. Model No. 3 was associated with a
worse auditory prognosis, a greater number of Tumarkin crisis, the need
for surgery, and a more frequent mononymptomatic debut. Model No. 1
presented a lower hearing loss compared to the rest of the models.
CONCLUSION: Several studies tried to define subtypes of MD. In our study
we have defined 3 models of behavior in UMD based on the number of
crisis suffered, which present a differential behavior according to
different aspects.