benign paroxysmal positional vertigo prevalence in meniere’s disease: is meniere’s disease a predisposing factor?

Background: meniere’s disease (md) is a chronic illness defined as an idiopathic syndrome of endolymphatic hydrops. benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (bppv) is a balance disorder and can be the sequel of diverse inner ear impairments. objectives: the purpose of this study was to investigate the prevalence of bppv in md patients. materials and methods: all patients with definite or probable md participated in this cross-sectional descriptive and analytic study between march 2013 and february 2014. we used the american academy of otolaryngology–head and neck surgery (aao-hns) criteria plus electrocochleography (ecochg) test results to define the presence of md and positional tests to determine the presence of bppv. the frequency was reported. independent sample t-test was also used in spss19. results: a total of 39 patients (43 ears) with definite or probable md (26 female, 13 male; mean age: 46.4 ± 9.2 years) were enrolled in this study. six out of 39 cases (15.4%) had bppv in the posterior semicircular canal. the mean duration of md was 28.5 months in bppv group and 13.2 months in the non-bppv group. regardless of the age of the patients, there was a significant difference (p = 0.02) between the duration of md in the two groups. conclusions: it seems that md and bppv are related and a longer duration of md may result in a greater risk of developing bppv.