Short-term audiologic effect of intratympanic gadolinium contrast agent application in patients with Ménière's disease.

OBJECTIVES

The aim of this study was to assess whether gadolinium-based contrast agent influences short-term hearing function in patients with Ménière's disease undergoing intratympanically enhanced inner-ear magnetic resonance imaging.

DESIGN

This is a prospective cohort study.

SETTING

This study was conducted a tertiary referral university hospital, ENT department.

PARTICIPANTS

In this study, 21 adult patients with definite, unilateral Ménière's disease were included. According to the criteria of the Committee on Hearing and Equilibrium, all patients were in stage 1 or 2 of the disease, with largely preserved hearing function.

OUTCOMES: All patients underwent clinical and audiologic testing before and 24 hours after intratympanic application of gadolinium-based contrast agent. The effects of the contrast medium on the hearing function were assessed by analysis of frequency thresholds, pure-tone average from 500 Hz to 3 kHz, and speech audiometry.

RESULTS

Pure-tone average and single-frequency thresholds in audiometry showed no statistically significant difference after the application of intratympanic gadolinium-based contrast agent. Furthermore, speech audiometry scores remained stable after the application of the contrast agent.

CONCLUSIONS

This study did not demonstrate clinically significant short-term effects of intratympanic application of gadolinium-based contrast agent on hearing function in patients with Ménière's disease in initial stages.