Neurootological findings after intoxications of the inner ear
Abstract
Specific chemical intoxications in the inner ear can arise from aminoglycosidic antibiotics. For this paper two samples of 485 patients after treatment with streptomycin and 23 patients after treatment of gentamycin have been randomly selected.
The amount of vertigo complaints was more than double as high in the group with gentamycin. This also kept on with the nausea complaints and with the so called vertigo releasing factors.
With respect to the hearing complaints the streptomycin group reported about tinnitus in 17,32%. This occurrence was double as high as with gentamycin, i.e. 37,48%. Subjective hearing loss was complained with streptomycin in 25,98% and with gentamycin in 34,78%.
The neurootological examination with an equilibriometric test battery unveiled a higher activity of the spontaneous nystagmus ENG in lying position with streptomycin and sitting position with gentamycin. The Claussen butterfly calorigrams nearly showed the same amounts of pathology with streptomycin as well as with gentamycin. This also holds for the VESRIC. The most sensitive equilibriometric test is the stepping CCG. But the stepping test recorded by the craniocorpogram (CCG) showed 63% of vestibular spinal pathology with streptomycin and 73% pathology with gentamycin.
Concerning the complaints about hearing disturbances speech audiometry approximately shows the same amount of pathology with streptomycin as with gentamycin.
But pure tone audiometry proves by the trend that all the threshold measurements are worse with gentamycin than with streptomycin.
For measuring the disturbances it is most favourable to apply step test CCG for equilibriometry and the pure tone audiometry for dealing with hearing deficits.