1993 Volume 86 Issue 2 Pages 181-187
A clinical survey on 143 patients with Meniere's disease who visited our clinic after October 1983 has been retrospectively carried out. The patients surveyed comprised 94 confirmed and 49 suspected cases according to the evaluation criteria of the Japan Committee of Meniere's Disease Study Group.
Of these 143 patients, 61 were males and 81 were females (M: F ratio=1:1.3) and the age distribution of this survery showed a shift toward an older population than that of other previously reported series in Japan. It was our impression that the percentage of patients over 60 years old might have been increasing.
Involvement of the disease was unilateral in 88.1% and bilateral in 11.9%. Pure tone audiograms of the patients varied relatively widely, but the audiometric patterns mainly observed were flat (30.8%), upslope (30.1%) and descending (22.4%). Pure vertiginous episodes were more common that merely dizzy or unsteady conditions. Tinnitus, hearing loss and sensation of fullness in the ear, which the patients subjectively complained of were noted in 87.4%, 83.2% and 72.7%, respectively.
A further follow-up study is necessary since the symptomatology and prognosis are highly variable in every individual during the course of the disease and the appropriate management procedures also differ.
