RESUMO
Objective To evaluate the correlation between the degree of cochlea endolymphatic hydrops(EH) and hearing loss and symptoms in patients with unilateral Meniere's disease. Methods Fifty seven patients with unilateral Meniere's patients were retrospectively quantitatively analyzed, which evaluated the correlation between the cochlea EH and hearing loss and symptoms. The affected ears in the experimental group(57 ears) and the asymptomatic ears in the control group(57 ears), were confirmed by bilateral intratympanic Gd-DTPA injection and 3D real IR MRI scan after 24 h. The maximum length of endolymph space and labyrinth chamber along the modiolus cochleae and their ratio which represented the endolymph space proportion of each turn(R1, the basal turn;R2, the middle turn;R3, the apical turn) were calculated. And the paired t test was used to compare the differences in EH degree between the experimental and control group;Pearson correlation analysis was used to analyze the correlation between the cochlea EH degree and hearing loss and duration of symptoms. Results R1, R1 and R3 of ipsilateral cochlea were higher than normal cochlea(ipsilateral R1:0.354±0.097 vs. normal R1:0.185±0.031, P0.05). In addition, there was a correlation between the degree of EH in the apical turn and low, medium, high-frequency hearing loss(r=0.271, 0.269, 0.329, respectively; all P<0.05). Conclusions The degree of cochlea EH in the basal and second turn showed great relevance with the high-frequency hearing loss, and the apical turn EH degree was relevant with the low, medium, high-frequency hearing loss, but there was no correlation between the EH degree of each turn, ages and symptoms.