Cervical vestibular evoked myogenic potential and high-frequency audiometry results in Behçet’s disease

Abstract Background Hearing is commonly impaired in Behçet’s disease (BD). Also, vestibular abnormalities as well as cochlear function affection have been found. The inflammatory process which leads to BD may be the cause of vestibular frequency audiometry abnormalities in those patients. The aim of this study is to assess hearing and vestibulo-colic reflex in Behçet patients using convential pure-tone audiometry (cPTA), high-frequency audiometry (HFA), and cervical vestibular evoked myogenic potential (cVEMP). Results This study included 25 patients with BD (group I), whose age ranged from 21 to 45 years, with a mean age of 34.24 ± 7.07 years. The control group (group II) comprised 20 normal adults whose ages are between 21 and 45 years, with a mean age of 30.8 ± 8.02 years. The measured cVEMP parameters which include the mean peak latency of P13 and the mean peak latency of N23 were statistically significantly different between the patients suffering from BD and the control groups. All BD patients had high-frequency sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) starting from 4 up to 12.5 kHz. The mean thresholds of the audiometry were significantly higher in the diseased group. Conclusion cVEMP testing can be used for the evaluation of the vestibulo-colic reflex in BD patients. The occurrence of hearing loss especially in high-frequency regions is a common finding in patients suffering from BD, and a HFA may be a valuable tool in early exploration of hearing loss in patients with BD.