1982 Volume 75 Issue 5special Pages 1150-1164
Between December 1978 and October 1979, a nation-wide follow-up of the second nation-wide survey of the 520 patients with definite Meniere's disease who had been collected by the seventeen members of the Meniere's Disease Research Committee of Japan from 1975 to 1976 was made by the same members. Among the 180 selected patients, who had a shorter duration of illness than one year at the second nation-wide survey, 120 patients (66%) were clinically followed up by the same members.
The following characteristic epidemiological and clinical features were obtained:
1) Sex ratio: The incidence was higher in males than females (71:49).
2) Age distribution at onset: The age distribution of the follow-up patients peaks at the age group of 40-49 years for both males and females, which was shown to be similar to the second survey for males.
3) The rate of patients who were severely disabled to the point of interference with their daily lives, was estimated to be 17.0% in this follow-up survey.
4) In 67 (60.9%) of the 110 follow-up cases, vertigo was of less intensity in the last one year, and it had a general tendency to change into dizziness as the duration of illness became longer.
5) The hearing level as expressed by the pure-tone audiogram deteriorated by an average of 10.5dB in the follow-up survey (2-4 years). Hearing impairments were more marked in the patients who were heavy drinkers and had the first attack at older ages.
6) The incidence of bilateral Meniere's disease increases with time from 2 to 5 cases for about 2-4 years.
