Mittelohrdruckmessung im Langzeittest und Fahrstuhlprovokationstest bei Patienten mit Morbus Menière

There is some evidence that the inner ear disorder Menière’s disease is associated with a pathological middle ear ventilation or rather with a pathological middle ear pressure, which might be responsible for the pathogenesis of the disease. The aim of the present study was to investigate the relationship between middle ear and inner ear, more precisely between negative middle ear pressure and Menière’s disease. The present study used long-term middle ear pressure measurements in patients with Menière’s disease for the first time. Thirty-three patients with Menière’s disease used Otoflex 100 (GN Otometrics) to perform mobile repetitive tympanometry. Due to portability of the device, measurements were performed during daily activities by the subjects themselves. In addition to the long-term measurements, a middle ear pressure equalization provocation test was performed during an elevator ride over 12 floors in the university hospital in Aachen. Comparisons with two control groups, one group of twenty patients with sensorineural hearing loss and one group of thirty healthy subjects, were made. The results of the long-term pressure measurements over 24 hours showed that the middle ear pressure of patients with Menière’s disease was significantly lower than the middle ear pressure of the two control groups. Furthermore, in patients with Menière’s disease, the ability of pressure equilibration in the middle ear was significantly worse than that of the control groups in the elevator provocation test. The results of both tests confirm the theory that Menière’s disease is related to a middle ear ventilation. Both tests suggest a defective middle ear ventilation in patients with Menière’s disease. The long-term measurement turned out to be a useful diagnostic method to split the heterogonous group of patients with Menière’s disease into two subgroups on the basis of a mean middle ear pressure of -40 daPa. Forty-five percent of all patients with Menière’s disease showed a very low middle ear pressure which suggests that middle ear ventilation might be involved in the pathogenesis of Menière’s disease. In this case patients will benefit from transtympanic ventilation tube insertion as a device to improve middle ear ventilation. Long-term portable tympanometry is a reasonable method to distinguish middle ear abnormal ventilation versus normal ventilation within Menière’s disease and therefore develop treatments, respectively.

Grantor dc:publisher

Publikationsserver der RWTH Aachen University

Year dc:date

2012

Author dc:creator

• Lücke, Kerstin Michaela

Contributors dc:contributor

• Westhofen, Martin

• info:eu-repo/classification/ddc/610
• Menière-Krankheit
• Mittelohr
• Tympanometrie
• Innenohrkrankheit
• Medizin
• Mittelohrdruck
• menière s disease
• middle ear
• middle ear pressure
• tympanometry
• inner ear disease

Statement dc:rights

• info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

Language dc:language

ger

Identifier

https://publications.rwth-aachen.de/search?p=id:%22RWTH-CONV-124511%22

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:publications.rwth-aachen.de:63049