Low- and high-frequency hearing in patients with Menière's disease

We determined the pure-tone hearing thresholds of 25 patients with unilateral active Menière's disease using standard clinical audiometry, high-frequency audiometry (10-18 kHz), and low-frequency audiometry (20-80 Hz). In addition to hearing loss at the conventional frequencies, all of the affected ears showed deterioration of the thresholds at both low- and high-frequency areas as compared with the reference ears. The degree of hearing loss at these frequencies correlated to the degree of the hearing loss at the conventional frequencies, where it was greatest at 0.5-1 kHz. Our findings suggest that in Menière's disease the whole cochlear sensory area is affected, and that the damage caused by Menière's disease advances simultaneously in all parts of the cochlea.