Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) is a typical vertigo disease, and BPPV developing during the course of diseases causing peripheral vertigo, including Meniere’s disease, is also known. Between June 2017 and March 2021, 29 (23%) of 124 patients who visited the Department of Otolaryngology, Osaka Metropolitan University Hospital, who were diagnosed as cases of definite Meniere’s disease exhibited complicating BPPV and their data were analyzed retrospectively. Out of the 29 cases, 23 (79%) had lateral semicircular canal BPPV, 4 (14%) had posterior semicircular canal-type BPPV, 1 had lateral semicircular canal-type BPPV (cupulolithiasis) + posterior semicircular canal-type BPPV, and 1 had lateral semicircular canal BPPV (canalolithiasis) + posterior semicircular canal-type BPPV. Of the 25 cases, 16 had cupulolithiasis and 9 had semicircular canalolithiasis. The side affected by Meniere’s disease and BPPV was the same in 14 of the 29 cases (48%), while opposite sides were affected by the two conditions in the remaining 11 cases (38%). No strong association was found between the severity of Meniere’s disease or hearing loss and the development of BPPV. In regard to the timing of onset of the BPPV, in more than a half of the cases, the BPPV developed within 1 month of the diagnosis of Meniere’s disease. We consider that it would be useful to identify predictors of the development of complicating BPPV in patients diagnosed as having Ménière’s disease.
