Clinical factors relating to the positive glycerol test for Ménière's disease.

In order to investigate the clinical factors relating to positive glycerol tests, 51 patients with Ménière's disease were subjected to a complete battery of audiometric examinations, including the short increment sensitivity index, Bekesy, alternate binaural loudness balance, speech discrimination and pure-tone audiometry tests, both before and after glycerol ingestion. The correlation between positive glycerol tests and vestibular response, cochlear symptoms, age at onset and disease duration was investigated. High ratios of positive tests were obtained in the following categories of patients with Ménière's disease: elderly patients with vertiginous attacks; patients with high-level hearing loss; nystagmus patients, and patients with fluctuating hearing loss.