Pre and post-glycerol special audiometric tests battery results in endolymphatic hydrops

The glycerol test for endolymphatic hydrops was administered to 17 patients exhibiting classical symptoms of Meniere's disease. A complete battery of audiometric tests including the SISI, TTD (Rosenberg variation). ABLB, Sweep Frequency Bekesy, two tests of speech discrimination (Rush Hughes and Northwestern), and air and bone conduction thresholds were administered pre and post-glycerol ingestion in order to determine the effect of osmotic diuresis. Improvement in pure-tone sensitivity and speech discrimination scores were most often observed. Among the special audiometric tests only the SISI scores exhibited changes, however, these could be related to the threshold changes. There were no significant differences observed in the threshold tone decay tests nor in the ABLB. The sweep frequency Bekesy test revealed only the changes which were observed in pure-tone sensitivity.