Prognosis of hearing impairment in Meniere's disease

The deterioration of hearing in Meniere's disease is known to be dependent on the individual and to be highly variable. In most cases, however, it lea ds to moderate hearing impairment. In order to be able to predict deteriora tion, we used multivariable modelling with a source population of definite cases of Meniere's disease diagnosed according to the latest recommended Am erican Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery criteria, The record s of 205 patients were retrospectively analysed. Their earliest and latest pure-tone air conduction audiograms were used to evaluate the long-term eff ects of the disease on hearing. The effect of age and the follow-up period were calculated for different frequencies (0.125-8 kHz) and for the pure-to ne average over the frequencies 0.5 to 4 kHz (PTA(0.5) (4 kHz)). Deteriorat ion in PTA(0.5-4) (kHz) was approximate to 1 dB/year clue to the duration o f the disease and approximate to 0.5 dB/year due to aging. Hearing impairme nt in Meniere's disease appeared to increase linearly with the duration of the disease for patients < 50 years of age, but in the older subjects the e ffect of the duration of the disease decreased. Both aging and the duration of the disease affected the hearing level. The duration of the disease did not seem to have any statistically significant effect on the difference be tween the two ears. The difference that occurred at the onset of the diseas e remained until presbyacusis in the better ear reached the hearing level o f the worse ear. The difference in hearing deterioration between men and wo men was not significant.