Intratympanic gentamicin instillation therapy to long-lasting benign paroxysmal positional vertigo following idiopathic sudden hearing loss: a case report

Abstract

Intratympanic instillation of gentamicin is currently a well-established treatment for intractable vertigo in patients with Meniere's disease. There are, however, only a few reports of this therapy in patients with non-Meniere type of vertigo. We report the case of a 68-year-old woman with the lateral semicircular canal type of benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) following right idiopathic sudden hearing loss. The patient was annoyed by the positional vertigo for one and a half years and was successfully treated by intratympanic gentamicin instillation. She had profound hearing loss on the right side and direction-changing apogeotropic positional nystagmus. Her caloric response on the right side was severely decreased (canal paresis 80%). Intratympanic gentamicin instillation therapy was undertaken (30 mg/ml/day 5 days), following which her positional vertigo was abolished. We propose that intratympanic instillation of gentamicin may also be applicable to selected patients with long-lasting BPPV.