Meniere's Disease

Abstract

This article reviews 3 aspects of Meniere's disease (MD), which have been recently revisited: namely, the pathologic mechanism causing the attacks of vertigo, the clinical diagnosis, and the medical and surgical treatments. The characteristic attacks of vertigo are unlikely to be due to membrane ruptures, so a hypothesis that the vertigo is caused by a volume of endolymph shifting suddenly from the cochlea into the pars superior is suggested. The definite diagnosis according to the American Academy of Otolaryngology HNS 1995 criteria [<citeref rid="ref13">13</citeref>] failed to exclude vestibular migraine sufficiently and a revision in 2015 [<citeref rid="ref14">14</citeref>] has partly addressed this problem but another method which stresses the interaction of the cochlear and vestibular symptoms is described. The treatment of MD has been updated, providing evidence for each popular therapy. Newer treatments using intratympanic medications including steroid solutions and gentamicin are discussed. Finally, the role of cochlear implants is mentioned.