Patients with Meniére's disease possess IgE reacting with herpes family viruses.

Objective: To determine if patients with Meniere's disease possess serum IgE specific for herpes simplex virus (HSV) type 1, HSV type 2, Epstein-Barr virus, and/or cytomegalovirus.

Design: A modified radioallergosorbent test method was employed wherein each serum sample was processed with recombinant protein A to remove competing non-IgE antibodies, and HSV-1, HSV-2, cytomegalovirus, and Epstein-Barr viral proteins were used as potential antigens.

Patients: Ten patients with long-standing active Meniere's disease were tested.

Binaural hearing after middle ear surgery. Masking-level difference for interaural time and amplitude cues.

Previous investigations have shown that binaural hearing is often abnormal in patients having conductive hearing losses, and even in patients who have had hearing thresholds corrected by middle ear surgery. The present study assessed further the masking-level difference (MLD) in patients who had previously undergone middle ear surgery. The stimuli were chosen such that the sensitivity to interaural time difference cues and to interaural amplitude difference cues could be assessed independently.

Effect of conductive hearing loss and middle ear surgery on binaural hearing.

This study investigated whether conductive hearing loss reduces normal binaural hearing advantages and whether binaural hearing advantages are normal in patients who have had hearing thresholds improved by middle ear surgery. Binaural hearing was assessed at a test frequency of 500 Hz using the masking level difference and interaural time discrimination thresholds. Results indicated that binaural hearing is often poor in conductive lesion patients and that the reduction in binaural hearing is not always consistent with a simple attenuation of the acoustic signal.