Ocular Vestibular Evoked Myogenic Potentials to Air Conducted Tone Bursts in Patients with Unilateral Definite Meniere's Disease

Purpose: The purposes of this study were to investigate the results of contra-lateral ocular vestibular evoked myogenic potentials (OVEMPs) elicited in patients with unilateral definite Meniere's disease (DMD) in response to monaural tone bursts acoustic stimulation and to compare them with that of the un-affected sides as well as normal subjects. Materials and Method: This study consisted of 31 patients with DMD (13 males and 18 females) and thirty normal subjects (16 females and 14 males) as a control group. They were subjected to hearing assessment and OVEMPs measurements. The biphasic N1, P1 waveform was recorded with respect to latencies in ms and amplitude in mu V. In this study OVEMPs differ in the affected than the un-affected side of Meniere's disease and normal subjects. Results: The results revealed that the mean amplitudes of the contra-lateral oVEMPs in the affected ears were significantly lowers and the mean latencies were significantly longer than that of normal. The average asymmetry ratio was significantly greater in Meniere's disease patients in comparison to normal subjects. Conclusion: These differences could be attributed to the patho-physiologic mechanism encountered in those patients. Hence, OVEMPs can be used as a part of the diagnostic work up of Meniere's disease to assess the crossed vestibular evoked potentials in those patients.