Distribution of neurotological findings in patients with cochleovestibular dysfunction

The relationship between spatial body positioning and environment comes from perfect corporal balance. The three most important systems responsible for this relationship are: the optic system (sight), the proprioceptive system, and the labyrinthine system. Study design: retrospective clinical. We carried out a retrospective study in 3,701 patients of a private otolaryngologic clinic in Jundiai – Sao Paulo, Brazil, who underwent vestibular and cochlear labyrinthine function testing, from 1979 to 2004. Aim: To determinate the syndromic distribution of the population and to correlate its relationship with sex, age, symptomatology, as well as otological, clinical and electronystagmographic findings, and which were the most frequent medical specialties who asked for this investigation. Results: We found higher prevalence in females (1.75:1). Seventy-nine percent of the patients were aged 20 to 59 years old, therefore including people in productive age, with a major prevalence of peripheral syndromes, but there was no preference for age or sex among different syndromes. This study also demonstrated that some otoneurological symptoms were common to all kinds of otoneurological syndromes, in opposition to the data found in the world literature. Tinnitus, hearing loss, nausea and vomiting as well as harmonic alterations in clinical examination were found with more frequency on peripheral syndromes, whereas non-harmonic was found in central syndromes, according to the reviewed literature. The conclusions showed that the majority of the patients started their investigation with either otolaryngologists or neurologists and 36% of the patients had peripheral syndrome and almost 25% had normal evaluation.