Compensatory process of vestibular neuronitis. From findings of combined galvanic test and caloric test

The compensatory process of vestibular neuronitis in 7 patients was followed up and evaluated using the Combined Galvanic Test (CGT) and other neuro-otological data. CGT is the simultaneous recording of both galvanic eye movement (GEM) and galvanic body sway (GBS), and has proved to be reliable in the diagnosis of retrolabyrinthine disorders. The results were as follows: The subjective symptoms remained in 3 cases from 1 month to 1 year. The recovery of the GBS response was seen earlier than that of both GEM and caloric responses. The recovery of GEM and caloric responses was observed at almost the same time. We observed the favorable recovery process of caloric response and GEM response in some cases which had recovery of GBS response within 4 weeks and suggest that the system of GBS response is different from that of GEM and caloric response. However, the systems of the latter two may be the same. We assume that the recovery of GBS response is earlier than that of GEM and caloric responses because the otolithic system recovers more easily than the semicircular canal system. The CGT and caloric test were reliable in examining the compensatory process of vestibular neuronitis.