Abstract
Gentamicin is known as an ototoxic drug as well as Streptomycin and Kanamycin. But only several clinical reports were seen on this subject. And it was not described in detail the results of vestibular test in these reports. In this paper, one patient who suffered from Gentamicin ototoxic effect is reported with detailed vestibular test.
A 70-year-old female had suffered from chronic pyelitis repeatedly for past six years. Her illness took a bad turn, so she was admitted to our hospital. She was given Chloramphenicol and other antibiotic drugs for a month. But they were not effective on her pyelitis. Then she was given Gentamicin 400mg for seven days. After the Gentamicin therapy she showed an ataxic gait and the ataxia made progress until that she could not walk by herself.
Otologicaly she showed signs as follows;
1) Sensorineural deafness was seen in her both ears in the level of 30-40dB at every examined tone. The recruitment phenomenon was positive by most comfortable loudness test.
2) Spontaneous and positional nystgmus were not found.
3) Ataxia was so severe that she could not keep Mann's posture even with open eyes.
4) By caloric test her left ear showed no response with both stimulations of 30°C and 44°C. The right ear did response for 150 sec. by the stimulation of 44°C water. But it did not show a certain response by 30°C water.
As a treatment, intravenous injection of Théraptique and Xylocaine and internal medication of ATP and so on were performed. After the treatment for a month, she could walk herself even though unsteadily. The caloric response of left ear was recovered at the cald stimulation. Her deafness too became in normal level.
