Menieres Disease with Patulous Eustachian Tubes

Background: Meniere’s disease (MD) is considered to be a multifactorial disease. Although there are some previous reports on the relationship between MD and stenotic eustachian tube (ET), there are a few reports evaluating MD and patulous ET. The study aimed to investigate whether MD would have patulous ET or not.

Methods and Findings: Sonotubometry was performed in patients with MD and healthy controls and the results and their correlations with hearing levels were assessed. 23 of 45 (51.1%) subjects in the MD group were diagnosed with eustachian tube dysfunction. 12 ears (26.7%) were diagnosed with “a stenotic tube type” and 11 ears (24.4%) were diagnosed with “a patulous tube type”. There was a significant difference between the MD group and healthy volunteer group in the variance of duration. The ratio of MD patients in the subjects showing patulous ET type (duration more than 899.2 ms) was significant higher than healthy controls. The mean amplitude and duration of the MD group were significantly higher than that of healthy controls. There was no significant relationship between ET function and hearing levels and vertigo attacks.

Conclusions: The findings of this study suggest that the patients with MD have not only a stenotic ET but also a patulous ET.

Author(s):

Kazuhiro Ogi, Yasuhiro Manabe, Takechiyo Yamada, Tetsuji Takabayashi, Yukihiro Kimura, Norihiko Narita and Shigeharu Fujieda

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