We intend to correct the historical error that Vincent Van Gogh's medical problems resulted from epilepsy plus madness, a diagnosis made during his life but for which no rigid criteria are apparent. Review of 796 personal letters to family and friends written between 1884 and his suicide in 1890 reveals a man constantly in control of his reason and suffering from severe repeated attacks of disa...

Perilymphatic fistula can be difficult to diagnose differentially prior to exploratory surgery. In this study, we investigated a new test technique in four case studies of subjects with perilymphatic fistula and compared our findings to results obtained in 20 normally hearing subjects with no history of vertigo and 10 subjects with Meniere's disease. Recordings from an eardrum electrode were ob...

The immunohistochemical expression pattern and the physiological role of transient receptor potential vanilloid (TRPV) 4 in the endolymphatic sac were investigated. TRPV4 was expressed predominantly in the apical membrane of the mitochondria-rich cells and cell volume regulation by TRPV4 was observed in a tissue culture of the rat endolymphatic sac. TRPV4 was also present in the endolymphatic s...

Ménière's disease (MD) is a condition that has been proposed over 150 years ago, which involves audiological and vestibular manifestations, such as aural fullness, tinnitus, vertigo, and fluctuating hearing thresholds. Over the past few years, many researchers have assessed different techniques to help diagnose this pathology. Vestibular-evoked myogenic potential (VEMP) is an electrophysiologic...

The study was aimed at evaluating the validity of impact measures among patients with Ménière's disease (MD) with outcome variables of EuroQol generic health-related quality of life (HRQoL) measures (i.e., EQ-5D) by using Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) and EQ-5D index values. 183 members (out of 200 contacted) of the Finish Ménière Association returned the questionnaires that they had filled out. ...

Meniere's disease, also know as endolymphatic hydrops, is a disorder of the inner ear of unknown cause. It is speculated that Meniere’s disease may be an immune-mediated disorder. Symptoms include tinnitus, vertigo, heightened sensitivity to loud sounds, fluctuating loss of hearing, headache, and aural fullness. In acute phases, nausea, vomiting, and disabling dizziness may occur. Usually, atta...

INTRODUCTION Endolymphatic hydrops, the histopathological substrate of Ménière's disease, is an almost universal finding in postmortem studies of patients with this disease. The cause of hydrops is still unknown, as is the mechanism by which it causes progressive dysfunction of the sensory organs of inner ear. The fluctuating course of the disease complicates the interpretation of certain tests...

OBJECTIVES To evaluate the hearing outcomes of intratympanic steroid (ITS) treatment for patients with acute low-tone sensorineural hearing loss (ALHL) after failure of initial therapy and to investigate the recurrence and progression to definite Ménière's disease (MD) during a long-term follow-up. METHODS We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of 90 patients with refractory ALHL who...

OBJECTIVES To establish the frequency of auto-antibodies anti-HSP 70 using ELISA and Western Blot (WB) methods and to compare the results of each method among patients with the Ménière's Disease (MD) and internal ear diseases (IED) who do not fulfill criteria for MD. Sensibility, specificity and predictive values of anti-HSP70 test in diagnosis of MD were calculated. STUDY Prospective, case-c...

UNLABELLED Meniere's disease, a common inner ear condition, has an incidence of 15-50 per 100,000. Because mental/physical stress and subsequent increase in the stress hormone vasopressin supposedly trigger Meniere's disease, we set a pilot study to seek new therapeutic interventions, namely management of vasopressin secretion, to treat this disease. We enrolled 297 definite Meniere's patients ...