Cervical vestibular evoked myogenic potential in patients with presbycusis / 实用医学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To explore the association between hearing loss and dysfunction of the vestibular end-organ in older individuals. To evaluate the common risk factors for hearing loss and otolith dysfunction. Meth-ods A total of 120 elderly patients without any vestibular symptoms were recruited in this study. They were divid-ed into two groupsa study group(patients with presbycusis)and a control group(patients without presbycusis). Audiological status was measured with pure tone audiometry and the saccular function was tested with cervical ves-tibular evoked myogenic potential(cVEMP). The results of cVEMP were calculated and compared between the two groups. Results Comparing to the control group,mean P1 and N1 latencies were significantly prolonged(t =4.67,4.59,P < 0.05)and the amplitudes were signi cantly reduced(t = 6.72,P < 0.05)in the study group. A sig-nificant correlation between hearing loss at high frequencies and reduced cVEMP amplitudes(r = -0.41,P < 0.05) were observed in the study group. Noise exposure was significantly associated with cVEMP amplitude(β = -0.52, P < 0.05). Conclusions Presbycusis may be accompanied by the hypofunction of saccular function without any vestibular symptoms,and the high frequency hearing threshold is closely related to the saccular function. Noise ex-posure appears to be related to both cochlear and saccular dysfunction.