[Pathology of the endolymphatic duct and sac in inner-ear hydrops]

Abstract

The morphological substrate of Menière's disease is the endolymphatic hydrops. That can be idiopathic or secondary as a sequence of a labyrinthine disease of another cause. It is possible to coordinate function loss of the sensory end-organs and pathohistological findings, but not all failures are light-microscopically explainable. The reason for the hydrops is certainly a disturbance in the endolymph physiology. For the pathogenesis are important, besides the biochemistry of the inner ear-fluids, problems of the membranes and pathological changes on ductus and saccus endolymphaticus and perimacular areals and plana semilunata. The perilymphatic space, documentated on the example of the secondary hydrops, is certainly not only passively enrolled in the procedure. All observations bring the initiation and periodicity of attacks to another point of view. A complete solution has not been possible so far, especially in the case of the etiology in idiopathic hydrops.