Centric and eccentric VOR tests in patients with Menière's disease and vestibular Menière's disease

Pendular rotation in the eccentric position produces the same angular stimulation as that in conventional pendular rotation and, in addition, involves linear centrifugal and tangential acceleration forces which act on the otolith organs. In the eccentric position, normal subjects showed an increase in gain at 0.64 Hz, when compared with the gain with the head in the centered position. Therefore, we concluded that it is possible to diagnose otolith dysfunction by this comparison. In this study, we applied centric and eccentric pendular rotation tests to patients with Menière's disease and vestibular Menière's disease and investigated their otolith function. Patients with Menière's disease or vestibular Menière's disease within 1 month after the first attack or the most recent attack showed no gain enhancement with eccentric rotation. However, others showed gain enhancement with eccentric rotation. Therefore, we concluded that there seems to be no difference in the otolith function, especially in utricular function between Meniere's disease and vestibular Menière's disease.