Stress hormones in Ménière's disease and acoustic neuroma.
Horner KC, Cazals Y.
Laboratoire de Physiologie Neurovégétative, Cnrs UMR 6153, 1147
INRA, Université Paul Cézanne, Faculté des Sciences St. Jérôme, Cases
351-352, Avenue Escadrille Normandie Niemen, 13397 Marseille Cedex 20,
France.
kathleen.hor...@univ.u-3mrs.fr Stress has been postulated to trigger or contribute to inner ear
pathologies but there is little objective evidence. We investigated
stress hormones in Ménière's patients and patients with acoustic
neuroma. Data were compared with those from a control group of patients
with facial spasm. We assayed classic stress hormones including
adrenocorticotropic hormone, cortisol, growth hormone and prolactin. We
found a strong positive correlation between cortisol and
adrenocorticotropic hormone in Ménière patients and patients with
acoustic neuroma but no correlation in patients with facial spasm. The
data also revealed in female patients with Ménière's disease or with
acoustic neuroma an unexpected significant positive correlation between
cortisol and prolactin. The data showed the expected negative
correlation or no correlation between cortisol and prolactin associated
with males and females in the other patient groups. Both cortisol and
prolactin increases are known to represent alternative strategies to
cope with stress, and our data point to prolactin being possibly more
dominant in Ménière's disease and cortisol in acoustic neuroma. These
data provide further evidence for modification of different stress
hormones in audiovestibular pathologies, which might provide a valuable
diagnostic or prognostic tool in the future.