An Epidemiological Study of Meniere's Disease Conducted by the Meniere's Disease Research Committee of Japan from 1977 to 1979

Abstract

After the first and second nation-wide surveys of the Meniere's Disease Research Committee of Japan from 1974 to 1976, the third nation-wide survey was carried out in the 435 departments of otolaryngology, internal medicine and neurology of both general and university hospitals for one week in June 1977 (Watanabe, 1978). In this survey, 747 patients with definite Meniere's disease were collected from 214 departments, that is 0.76% of the total number of out- and in-patients and were statistically evaluated with respect to severely disabled patients.
Nakae and Komatsuzaki (1978) conducted an epidemiological analysis of 512 patients with Meniere's disease by means of questionaires comparing them with the 321 vertiginous patients and 512 ENT out-patients in whom Meniere's disease had been ruled out; the complications of hypotension, preceding presence of fatigue, insufficient sleep and mental stress were frequently observed in the group of Meniere's disease. Yasuda (1978) analysed a correlation between the vertiginous attack of Meniere's disease and the weather at four different districts in Japan.
Between December 1978 and October 1979, a follow-up of the second nation-wide survey of Meniere's disease was made. Among the 180 selected patients who were sick for a shorter period than one year at the second nationwide survey, 120 patients (66%) were collected by the seventeen members of this Committee in 1979, and were evaluated from the epidemiological and clinical points of view (Mizukoshi et al., 1980).
According to these epidemiological and clinical surveys of the period during 1977-1979, the characteristic features of Meniere's disease are as follows.
1) From the nation-wide one-day and one-week surveys, a total number of patients with Meniere's disease in Japan was calculated to be about 4, 000-80, 000, and a prevalence rate was also estimated to be 35-170 per million inhabitants (Nakae et al., 1978).
2) There was an increasing number of patients in the southern area of the Kanto district, compared with the northern area. (Naito, 1973; Watanabe, 1976 and 1979; and Nakae et al., 1978).
3) The rate of patients who were severely disabled to the point of their daily lives being handicapped was estimated to be 54.7% (in the 3rd survey) or 15.2% (in the 4th follow-up study). (Watanabe, 1979; and Mizukoshi et al., 1980).
4) In 67 (60.9%) of the 110 follow-up patients who were sick for 2-4 years, vertigo was of less intensity in the last year and the vertigo tended to change into dizziness as the duration of the illness became longer. (Mizukoshi et al. 1980).
5) The hearing level as expressed by the pure-tone audiogram deteriorated by an average of 10.5dB in the 4th follow-up survey. (Mizukoshi et al., 1980).
6) The incidence of bilateral Meniere's disease increased as the duration of illness became longer. (Mizukoshi et al., 1977 and 1980)