AUDIOVESTIBULAR PROFILE IN MIGRAINOUS VERTIGO (MV)

Objective- To study the Audiovestibular profile in patients with Migrainous vertigo (MV).Materials and methods- A retrospective chart review was done on patients who presented to the audiovestibular clinic in a tertiary referral centre between march 2010 to June 2011 diagnosed to have MV according to Neuhauser (2001) criteria and also fulfilled the inclusion and exclusion criteria of the study . Information was gathered from a standard proforma that is being regularly used in the audiovestibular clinic for evaluating patients with vertigo, that contains details of history, clinical features, results of pure tone audiometry, impedance audiometry and electronystagmography (ENG).Results- Of the 52 patients recruited, 23 (44) had true head rotatory vertigo while 29 (56) had non specific dizziness and 31(60) had positional dizziness and in 75 the duration of attacks (vertigo) lasted for seconds to minutes. Forty two (81) patients experienced headache along with vertigo. Phonophobia and photophobia were the commonest associated symptoms after headache and nausea. Eleven (21.2) patients complained of hearing loss and 17(32.7) patients complained of tinnitus. On audiometric testing, 35 of the 52 patients had abnormal hearing all of them had a sensorineural type of hearing loss except one. On ENG testing, hyperactive response was seen in 20 of patients, canal paresis in 48 of which 28 had unilateral and 12 were bilateral canal paresis.Conclusion- Audiovestibular abnormalities are common in MV when it is looked for. In this study, out of the 35 patients who had abnormal hearing on pure tone audiogram 80 were asymptomatic.