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Wideband tympanometry as a diagnostic tool for Meniere’s disease: a retrospective case-control study

  • Otology
  • Published:
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Abstract

Purpose

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the usefulness of wide band tympanometry (WBT) as a diagnostic tool for Ménière’s disease (MD) by comparing differences in absorbance measures between normal hearing ears and patient diagnosed with MD.

Methods

We conducted a retrospective case–control study. From a cohort of 116 patients diagnosed with Ménière disease, 52 MD patients and 99 normal hearing adults with no history of otological disease served as subjects. Wideband tympanometry was conducted using at Titan Impedance module and audiometry was performed with a MADSEN Astera2. Mean energy absorbance curves with 95% confidence intervals were computed across cases with MD and controls in the frequency range 226–8000 Hz. An overall test for difference between curves of cases and controls was calculated by multivariate analysis of variance.

Results

The MD group and the subpopulations of MD patients who fulfilled the International criteria for MD showed a statistically significant lower absorbance at tympanic peak pressure compared to the control group (p < 0.001). No overlap of confidence intervals between mean curves was found within the frequency range of 2000–4000 Hz.

Conclusion

Absorbance measures obtained by WBT were able to distinguish between MD ears and normal ears within the frequency range of 2000–4000 Hz. The results indicate that WBT potentially could be a useful and simple non-invasive diagnostic tool for MD. However, more research on the association between absorbance measures and inner ear pathologies is needed.

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Notes

  1. 30 dB hearing loss comparede to the treshold in unilateral- and 35 db bilateral-SNHL at each of two contiguous frequencies below 2000 Hz.

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Funding

No funding was received for conducting this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery and Audiology, Aalborg University Hospital, Aalborg, Denmark

    Jacob Miehe, Nina Lyhne & Dan D. Hougaard

  2. Department of Clinical Medicine, Aalborg University Hospital, Aalborg, Denmark

    Simon Mogensen & Dan D. Hougaard

  3. Unit of Clinical Biostatistics, Aalborg University Hospital, Aalborg, Denmark

    Regitze Skals

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  1. Jacob Miehe
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Correspondence to Jacob Miehe.

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The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.

Ethical approval

This retrospective chart review study involving human participants was in accordance with the ethical standards of the Institutional and National Research Committee (The North Denmark Region Committee on Health Research Ethics id-number 2008-58-0028 and 2016-128) and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Miehe, J., Mogensen, S., Lyhne, N. et al. Wideband tympanometry as a diagnostic tool for Meniere’s disease: a retrospective case-control study. Eur Arch Otorhinolaryngol 279, 1831–1841 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00405-021-06882-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00405-021-06882-7

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