Water irrigation versus air insufflation: A comparison of two caloric test protocols

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to construct and compare two caloric test protocols, one for water irrigation, and one for air insufflation. A set of reference data was constructed and tabulated as well as the intersubject variability. The effect of age, sex, ear, and temperature, as well as a possible priming effect and order effect were investigated. Forty-seven subjects (18-58 years) without otological or vestibular history participated. Four response parameters were investigated: slow component velocity (SCV), frequency, unilateral weakness (UW), and directional preponderance (DP). Statistically higher SCV values were obtained for water compared to air, with statistically higher standard deviations for SCV water values. No influences of age, sex, ear, or temperature could be demonstrated on any of the response parameters. The same applied for the presence of an order effect and a priming effect. Comparing the two protocols to one another led the present authors to favour water as the standard irrigation medium, and air only in situations where water is contra-indicated.

The human vestibular cortex revealed by coordinate-based activation likelihood estimation meta-analysis

“…(Maes et al, 2007). When thermal energy is transmitted through the temporal bone to the inner ear, a convective flow of the endolymph is created, stimulating the vestibular sensors in the crista ampullaris of the semicircular canals.…”

Testing of the Semicircular Canal Function in Vertigo and Dizziness

“…Hence, higher and lower temperatures compared to water irrigation can be used in air irrigation in order to achieve comparable results [25]. Other and our laboratory prefer still water irrigation for the obvious reasons [26].…”

La prueba calórica

“…Se ha discutido en la literatura cual es la mejor forma de irrigación. Se puede decir que los tres métodos de irrigación mencionados producen aceptables respuestas calóricas con una reproductibilidad test-retest correcta [18][19][20]. Han de tenerse en cuenta algunas particularidades relativas al tipo de estimulador.…”

“…Se ha especulado mucho respecto al efecto del orden en que se realizan las irrigaciones sobre el resultado final de la prueba [1,12,19,21,22], e incluso se desarrollaron fórmulas con factores de corrección [23]. En realidad, el efecto del orden de la estimulación sobre el resultado dependía sobre todo de cambios en la calibración a lo largo de la prueba cuando ésta era realizada con registro electronistagmográfico, recomendándose por ello repetir la calibración entre estimulaciones [22].…”