vestibular function can be affected by autoimmune processes in rheumatoid arthritis

background and aim: autoimmune inner ear disease (aied) may accompany certain systemic conditions, such as rheumatoid arth­ritis, and manifest audiovestibular dysfunction. this study aimed to compare the vestibular function between rheumatoid arthritis (ra) patients and normal subjects using cervical vestibular-evoked myogenic potentials and caloric tests. methods: in this cross-sectional study, 25 patients with ra and 20 normal subjects underwent pure tone audiometry, acoustic immittance, cervical vestibular-evoked myo­genic potentials (cvemps), and bithermal calo­ric test which eye movements were recorded by videonystagmography. results: sensorineural hearing loss was found in 40% of patients with rheumatoid arthritis, which was significantly higher than controls (p<0.05). biphasic waveforms of cvemps were obtained from all of the participants. there were no significant differences in mean peak-to-peak amplitude and asymmetry ratio between the two groups (p>0.05). the mean peak latency of p13 was significantly higher in ra patients (p<0.05). the mean peak latency of n23 was statistically different in the left ear (p<0.05), but in the right ear the difference was not significant (p>0.05). unilateral weakness in patients with ra were significantly higher than those in the control group (p<0.05). the values of direc­tional preponderance were not significantly different between groups (p>0.05). conclusion: audiovestibular dysfunction may present in the patients with rheumatoid arthritis to a varying degree. the possible pathology was discussed in here. further studies may shade more light to the pathogenesis of the aied.