Two-Hour Follow-Up is Equivalent to One-Day Follow-Up of Posterior Canal Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo

To evaluate short-term outcome for posterior canal benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (p-BPPV) after modified Epley's maneuver (mEM).

Patients who were diagnosed with p-BPPV between September 2017 and January 2018 in a tertiary care center were included. Patients were treated with mEM. Five follow-up points were set at one hour, two hours, one day, three days and one week. If Dix-Hallpike test (DH) was positive, mEM was performed and patient was scheduled for follow-up at the next follow-up point. If negative, the patient was accepted as completely resolved and scheduled for follow-up at one week. The proportion of completely resolved patients at each follow-up point, recurrence, lateral canal conversion rate and time were noted. A retrospective control group was created from patients treated for p-BPPV between April and August 2017. The outcome of the study and control groups were compared.

There were 93 patients in study group. 63 (67.7%), 8 (8.6%), 3 (3.2%), 0 (0%) and 9 (9.7%) patients completely resolved at one-hour, two-hour, one-day, three-days and one-week follow-ups. 1.96±1.60 (1-5) mEMs were performed. Control group included 61 patients. At one-week follow-up a total of 83 (89.2%) patients in study group and 48 (78.7%) in control group were completely resolved(p=0.1043). In study group 5 (5.37%) of patients had lateral canal conversion within one day. 2(2.15%) had recurrence one day later after two-hour follow-up. The number of patients completely resolved at two-hour follow-up and before (76.34%) compared to the patients completely resolved at one-day follow-up and before (79.56%) were not significantly different (p=0.7235).

Two-hour follow-up is equivalent to one-day follow-up of p-BPPV in terms of therapy outcome and adverse affects.