Clinical Significance of Vestibular Evoked Myogenic Potentials in Patients With Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the vestibular evoked myogenic potentials (VEMP) results in benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) patients and to verify its clinical applications in BPPV. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: Forty-one patients with diagnosis of BPPV and 92 healthy volunteers who underwent VEMP testing. Patients were treated by canalith repositioning maneuvers according to the affected canal, and testing of VEMP was performed at diagnosis and after treatment. RESULTS: VEMP results of BPPV patients showed prolonged p13 and n23 latencies compared with those of the control group, and we could not find any significant difference in VEMP latencies between patients with posterior and horizontal canal type of BPPV. The number of times that the maneuver was repeated did not correlate with the degree of latency prolongation, but in the "no response" group, the number of times was considerably greater than those in the "response" group. CONCLUSIONS: We found that VEMP latencies are increased in BPPV patients, which may signify neuronal degenerative changes in the macula of the saccule. When an extensive neuronal damage was suspected by VEMP results such as "no response" in VEMP, the disease progress showed a chronic and resistive course. Therefore, we propose that VEMP could be a useful method to determine a clinical prognosis of patients with BPPV.