1. Introduction
Menière’s disease (MD) is characterized by episodic vertigo associated
with tinnitus, fluctuating hearing loss, aural fullness and
endolymphatic hydrops (ELH) (1,
2). Several studies proposed a loss of
neural structures (such as hair cells or neurons within the spiral
ganglion) in Menière’s disease (MD) (3).
In recent years several studies have evaluated and quantified ELH in
patients with MD (4). Only few studies,
however, have analyzed morphometric parameters of cranial nerves VII and
VIII on MRI (5-8).
The course of cranial nerves VII and VIII from the pons through the
cerebellopontine angle and the internal auditory canal
(9) make these nerves amenable to
morphometric evaluation in anatomical and MRI studies. The
VIIIth cranial nerve divides within the IAC into its
three branches: cochlear nerve (CN), superior vestibular nerve (SVN) and
inferior vestibular nerve (IVN). In the anterosuperior portion of the
IAC the facial nerve is found, and inferior to it the cochlear nerve
(10). To our knowledge, no morphometric
analyses of these nerves have been performed using different MRI
sequences with different spatial resolution in patients with clinically
unilateral MD in correlation to symptom duration.
We previously demonstrated a swelling of VIIth and
VIIIth cranial nerves on MR imaging in patients with
MD (8). The aim of this study was to
investigate morphometric differences of the VIIth and
VIIIth cranial nerve within MD patients using
different MR imaging techniques.