Surgical and physical therapy treatment of benign paroxysmal positional vertigo

Two treatments for the benign paroxysmal positional vertigo are presented and evaluated in this article. The first type of treatment is the surgical section of the posterior ampullary nerve according to Gacek and the second is physiotherapeutic by the manoeuvre of Semont. The section of the posterior ampullary nerve has been realised between 1980 and 1986 on 5 patients suffering from persistent and disabling positional vertigo. All 5 patients were relieved from their vertigo immediately after the operation. One patient developed a post-operative hearing loss. The physiotherapeutic manoeuvre of Semont, which has been developed in order to liberate otolithic deposits from the cupula of the posterior semi-circular canal is applied in our clinic since 1985 as treatment of the benign paroxysmal positional vertigo. The efficiency of the manoeuvre was tested at first in a retrospective study on 50 patients. A single manoeuvre cured 20 of these patients and 15 others were cured after a second manoeuvre. Then, a controlled and prospective study was performed: the clinical course of 40 patients without treatment was compared with 37 patients treated with Semont's manoeuvre. In the group of patients without treatment, only 17 were spontaneously cured from their positional vertigo after 18 days of evolution. In the group treated by Semont's manoeuvre 19 patients were completely healed from vertigo and 16 others were greatly improved. On the basis of these favourable results the authors recommend to treat all cases of paroxysmal positional vertigo at first with Semont's manoeuvre. The section of the posterior ampullary nerve should be restricted to the rare cases with persistent and disabling vertigo.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)