3. Results
Both ears of the 71 MD patients (27 females, 44 males, mean age 54.4 years, age range 23 - 77 years) were measured and analysed. 53 of these patients were classified as unilaterally affected (20 females, 33 males, mean age 50.5 years, age range 23 - 77 years). Further clinical patient data were also collected, such as symptom duration (range 4 - 252 months, mean 76 months) and four-tone average calculated from hearing at 0.5, 1, 2 and 3 kHz (range unaffected side 2.5 – 31.75 dB, mean 13.87 dB, range affected side 2.5 - 83.5 dB, mean 42.02 dB).
No significant differences were observed when comparing the affected side to the non-affected side of the VIIth and VIIIth cranial nerves in the cohort of clinically unilaterally affected MD patients (table 1) when adjusting for multiple testing. Without adjustment for multiple testing, in order for catering for an explorative approach, significant differences were found following no certain pattern, e.g. p<0.05 could be found for SD at the level of CPA in the VIIIth nerve and LD at level of CPA and fundus of the VIIth nerve. These results were found to be independent of the used MRI sequence (CISS-0.4, CISS-0.6, IR-0.5 or IR-0.3) when adjusting for multiple testing (tables 2 and 3) at the level of the CPA. Without Bonferroni correction significant differences were found in the VIIIth nerve at this level only for SD in CISS-0.4 (table 1) and CSA in IR-0.3 at the level of CPA (table 3), obviously also not following a specific pattern.
Also, no significant differences between the morphometric measurements of the VIIth and VIIIth cranial nerves of the different sides were observed after Bonferroni correction in the cohort of clinically bilaterally affected patients.
When comparing the affected side of the unilaterally affected cohort with the LEIM-assessed side of the bilaterally affected cohort, no significant difference was shown along our measuring points of VIIth and VIIIth cranial nerves (Table 4, cross sectional areas within CISS-0.4, CISS-0.6, IR-0.3 and IR-0.5). Similar results were found investigating the clinically non-affected side of the first cohort and the contralateral ear of the bilaterally affected cohort. These results were again independent of the used MRI sequence.
An overview of the significant p-values without adjustment for multiple testing is summarized in table 5, no specific pattern is recognizable.
We furthermore evaluated the morphometric properties of the VIIth and VIIIth cranial nerves of the first cohort in dependence of symptom duration. We initially divided the cohort of unilaterally affected patients in a subgroup with a symptom duration of a maximum of 12 months (n = 9) and compared these to the rest of the group (n = 26); we observed no significant differences between the groups neither when comparing the affected sides nor when comparing the non-affected sides. Subsequently, we compared patients with a symptom duration of at least 120 months (n = 14) to the patients with a symptom duration of a maximum of 12 months (n = 9). Again, there were no significant differences for the morphometric parameters (table 6).