Migrainous vertigo and Menière's disease: Is there a common genetic background?

Neuhauser et al. 1 prospectively evaluated 200 patients from a dizziness clinic and 200 ones from a migraine clinic. Prevalence of migraine according to International Headache Society (IHS) II criteria was 38% in the dizziness clinic and 24% in sex and age matched controls (p < 0.01). Migrainous vertigo was present in 7% of patients of the dizziness clinic and in 9% of the ones in the migraine clinic. In 15 of 32 patients vertigo was always associated with migraine during the acute attacks. In 16 patients this association was irregular and 2 patients never had both migraine and vertigo together. Radtke et al. 2 studied 78 patients (40 male and 38 female) aged 29 to 81 years old, all with idiopathic uni or bilateralMénièrès disease according to the AAO-HNS criteria. Lifetime prevalence of migraine with and without aura was 50% amongMénièrès patients and 25% among normal controls (p < 0.001). Furthermore 45% of the patients withMénièrès disease always experienced at least one of the migraine symptoms (headache, photophobia, aura) symptoms during the acute attacks. They postulated a pathophysiologc link between migraine andMénièrès disease. Urkur et al. 3 studied VEMP parameters in Migrainous Vertigo,Ménièrès disease and migraine and found very similar results for all the patients. They also postulated an etiologic link for these syndromes. Gazques et al. 4 published a paper on recent Advances in the genetics of recurrent vertigo including familial episodic ataxias, Migrainous Vertigo and Ménièrès disease. They found that 10 to 20% of Ménièrès disease patients have positive family history for this disease. Cha et al. 5 described 6 families with index patients affected byMénièrès syndrome and Migraine. There were 56 siblings affected. Of these, 26(41%) met the IHS II criteria for Migraine. Fifty per cent had Migraine with aura. Three patients had typical aura without headache. Sixty three family members had recurrent spells of spontaneous vertigo. There were 3 twin pairs, 2 mono and 1 dizygotic. One homozygotic pair had Migraine andMénièrès syndrome while the other had migraine and episodic vertigo without auditory symptoms. They proposed a common heritage for Migrainous Vertigo and Ménièrès disease with variable penetrance. Bertora & Bergman 6 studied using quantitative EEG (qEEG) 120 patients who hadMenièrès disease and Migraine and 85Ménièrès disease patients without migrane. Eighty five per cent of theMénièrès disease patients had haemodynamic brain variations like the ones found in Migraine. Brain electric depolarizations and cortical irritative focuses …