[Recovery from Meniere's disease].

When vertigo attacks and balance disorders stop, menieric patients are generally considered recovered although they complain of more or less severe sensorineural hearing loss. As far as a true clinical recovery is concerned, the Authors think that it should correspond not only to absence of vertiginous spells but even to a long lasting normal and stable hearing level. On the basics of this presumption, they select the files of 7/207 patients showing complete recovery since not less than 8 years. Age at the onset of the disease, associated disease, isolated symptoms before the appearance of the classic triade, age at the first attack, total number of crises, length of active period of the disease, maximum hearing loss, shape of audiometric tracing are all analyzed. Healed patients are characterized by a smooth evolution, which reverses in the very first phases of the disease, as well as by the following: 1) absence of head injury and viral labyrinthitis in clinical history; 2) onset of disease with complete symptomatology; 3) slight hearing loss and up-sloping audiometric configuration; 4) few attacks of vertigo (less than 30) lasting no longer than 12 hours; 5) active period of disease not exceeding 18 months. Recovery from Ménière's disease seems possible as long as labyrinth lesions are not stabilized.