Hanks, Wendy D.

Objectives: Significant advancements have been made toward the clinical assessment of utricular function through ocular vestibular-evoked myogenic potentials (oVEMP) and unilateral centrifugation (UCF) testing. To date, no study has examined intrasubject relationships between these measures. The study hypothesis was that intrasubject responses from oVEMP and UCF testing would be correlated inasmuch as both tests have been reported to assess utricular function. Design: UCF rotations and oVEMP testing were performed on healthy volunteers, aged 18 to 62 years. A within-subject study design compared and correlated UCF outcome measures of ocular counterroll, subjective visual vertical, and ocular counterroll–gravitational inertial acceleration slope against peak to peak oVEMP N1–P1 amplitude. Results: Correlational analyses failed to reveal any significant relationships between oVEMP amplitude and UCF responses suggesting that these tests may be inciting different response properties within the utricular system. Conclusions: Various anatomical and physiological differences within the utricle, in addition to the fundamental differences in stimulus properties between the oVEMP and UCF tests, could explain the lack of significant correlations between these measures and suggest that oVEMP and UCF testing may be complimentary in their evaluation of the utricular system. These data reinforce the complexities of the utricular system and provide further insight into the difficulties encountered in its clinical assessment.

MFT has the potential to become the standard of care when dealing with possible middle ear pathologies. By applying those applications appropriate to the individual practice, and with a reasonable marketing effort, the cost of MFT-capable equipment should be readily recoverable. Finally, and most importantly, MFT is being shown in the current literature to be a better diagnostic tool than traditional tympanometry and to improve the level of care being provided to many clients by the audiologist and the physician. In my mind, this alone justifies the expenditure.