Intractable Ménière's disease. Modelling of the treatment by means of statistical analysis.
OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the value of different variables of the clinical history, auditory and vestibular tests and handicap measurements to define intractable or disabling Ménière's disease.


METHODS
This is a prospective study with 212 patients of which 155 were treated with intratympanic gentamicin and considered to be suffering a medically intractable Ménière's disease. Age and sex adjustments were performed with the 11 variables selected. Discriminant analysis was performed either using the aforementioned variables or following the stepwise method.


RESULTS
Different variables needed to be sex and/or age adjusted and both data were included in the discriminant function. Two different mathematical formulas were obtained and four models were analyzed. With the model selected, diagnostic accuracy is 77.7%, sensitivity is 94.9% and specificity is 52.8%.


CONCLUSIONS
After discriminant analysis we found that the most informative variables were the number of vertigo spells, the speech discrimination score, the time constant of the VOR and a measure of handicap, the "dizziness index".
Sanchez-Ferrandiz
Noelia
N
Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Complejo Hospitalario La Mancha-Centro, Spain.
Fernandez-Gonzalez
Secundino
S
Guillen-Grima
Francisco
F
Perez-Fernandez
Nicolas
N
D000287:Administration, Topical; D000328:Adult; D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D004185:Disability Evaluation; D016002:Discriminant Analysis; D004585:Electrooculography; D005260:Female; D005839:Gentamicins / Q000627:therapeutic use; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008575:Meniere Disease / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000503:physiopathology*; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012399:Rotation; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014724:Vestibular Function Tests
D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents; D005839:Gentamicins