Acute low-tone sensorineural hearing loss and Meniere's disease:similarities and differences From the standpoint of acute low-tone sensorineural hearing loss

Abstract

　Acute low-tone sensorineural hearing loss (ALHL) is the most common among the causes of acute sensorineural hearing loss. It is well known that some cases of ALHL eventually develop typical or atypical Meniere's disease. Recently, gadolinium-enhanced inner ear MRI has revealed that endolymphatic hydrops is frequently seen not only in Meniere's disease, including the atypical type, but also in cases of ALHL. Therefore, it can be said that one of the fundamental differences between ALHL and Meniere's disease is whether the condition is episodic or not. We propose to conduct a re-evaluation in the future of the classification of the causes of primary endolymphatic hydrops, such as ALHL and Meniere's disease, by gadolinium-enhanced inner ear MRI, as proposed by Gürkov.