Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0012833 (dizziness)
 9,689 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

We report a rare case of relapsing polychondritis with an initial symptom of inner ear involvement. This 53-year-old Japanese man experienced a hearing difficulty, tinnitus in both ears, and dizziness of sudden onset, but lacked auricular chondritis at that time, which is the most frequent finding in relapsing polychondritis. Thus it was difficult to reach a correct diagnosis. Steroid therapy, with oral prednisolone 15 mg daily, was effective. Almost two months after we began the steroid therapy, the patient complained of losing interest in his work and reported a hallucination vision on the TV screen, so the dose of prednisolone was decreased to 10 mg. The hallucinations then disappeared, but the serum level of C-reactive protein increased highly. To reduce the dose of prednisolone, we tried low-dose oral methotrexate. However, we had to discontinue it when the patient experienced severe vomiting and diarrhoea. As adjuvant therapy, we then administered Sho-saiko-to, Chinese herbal medicines with few side effects. Symptoms and laboratory abnormalities then improved markedly.
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PMID:Relapsing polychondritis presented as inner ear involvement. 872 1

A 64-year-old man developed cognitive impairment. A neurological examination showed hypereactive tendon reflex. A cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) examination showed a mild increase in both the number of mononuclear cells (14 cells/mm3) and the protein level (45 mg/dl). An electroencephalogram showed diffuse slow wave activity. Brain MR images revealed multifocal lesions in the limbic area and white matter regions. He was suspected to have autoimmune encephalitis and his symptoms improved after treated with methylprednisolone (1 g/day for 3 days). Despite this treatment, his mental disorders later relapsed. His condition improved after undergoing repeated treatment. Thereafter, he developed bacterial meningoencephalitis which had been caused by Listeria monocytogenes during the period of the internal administration of steroids. Antibiotics successfully cured his Listeria meningoencephalitis. He thereafter developed conjunctivitis, polyarthritis, hearing difficulties, dizziness and auricular chondritis. Based on these findings, we diagnosed the patient to have relapsing polychondritis (RP). It was thus conceivable that his cognitive impairment has been caused by CNS vasculitis associated with RP. RP therefore should be carefully taken into consideration and be included in the differential diagnosis as a possible cause for CNS vasculitis.
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PMID:[Case of relapsing polychondritis followed by cognitive impairment]. 1763 9

Relapsing polychondritis (RP) is a rare disease which presents chondritis in multiple organs. Characteristic features include auricular chondritis, arthritis, nasal chondritis, ocular inflammation, respiratory tract involvement and audiovestibular damage. Fifty percent of cases of RP are associated with inner ear symptoms such as dizziness and hearing loss. We have recently encountered a case of RP in a 34-year-old man who had recurrent chondritis of both auricles and progressive bilateral profound sensorineural hearing loss; he had been treated many times with steroids, immunosuppressants, plasmapheresis treatments. We perfomed a successful cochlear implant surgery on the left ear of this patient. This raises the possibility of using cochlear implants in treating patients with immune-mediated inner ear disease as well as such RP patients.
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PMID:Cochlear implantation in a bilateral sensorineural hearing loss patient with relapsing polychondritis. 2004 55