Abstract
I introduced migraine associated vertigo (MAV) as one of the new clinical entities which might cause vertigo and reviewed my own patients with MAV. While MAV is quite widely accepted in Europe and the USA, it is not familiar in Japan, especially for Japanese otolaryngologists. Although the universal diagnostic criteria of MAV are still under discussion, they should include 1) episodic vertigo attacks, 2) migraine attacks, and 3) an episode of simultaneous existence of vertigo and migraine. In the clinical review, patients (N=41) were female-dominant (8 men and 33 women), and the mean of their age was 38.2 years. The majority of the patients had rotatory vertigo lasting several hours. Some patients had tinnitus and aural fullness. Their tinnitus and aural fullness could be bilateral. Caloric tests and/or vestibular evoked myogenic potentials (VEMP) could be abnormal. Concerning VEMP, some patients showed prolongation of latencies, while some showed absence of responses or shifts of characteristic frequency. These findings suggested that the pathophysiology and lesion sites of MAV could be diverse. At the current stage, establishment of universal diagnostic criteria and treatment guidelines is required.
