Correlations between foam posturography and vestibular-evoked myogenic potential tests in Ménière's disease

This study adopted foam posturography coupled with inner ear test battery including audiometry, and cervical Vestibular-Evoked Myogenic Potential (cVEMP), ocular Vestibular-Evoked Myogenic Potential (oVEMP) and Caloric tests in patients with Ménière's disease to investigate the relations between them.

Fifty patients with unilateral definite Ménière's disease were enrolled. All patients underwent Audiometry, and Caloric, oVEMP, and cVEMP tests. In addition, posturography was also performed under 4 conditions: A (firm surface, eyes open), B (firm surface, eyes closed), C (foam pad, eyes open), and D (foam pad, eyes closed). Romberg quotient (RQ) was measured as the value from eyes closed divided by that from eyes open.

No correlation existed between Ménière stage and RQ measured with foam pad. Mean RQ of the sway area on foam pad in Ménière's patients with abnormal oVEMPs (1.75 ± 0.95) was significantly larger than 1.20 ± 0.70 in those with normal oVEMPs. However, neither cVEMP nor Caloric test results were associated with RQ on foam pad (p > 0.05). Further, the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of the RQ of sway area on foam pad in discrimination between normal and abnormal oVEMP test was 0.65 (95% CI, 0.51 to 0.79; p < 0.05), implying that RQ of the sway area on foam pad may serve as a significant predictor for abnormal oVEMP test.

By removing or reducing both visual and somatosensory inputs from foam posturography, the remaining vestibular cue, represented as RQ of sway area on foam pad, may reflect utricular function.