Acetazolamide in Ménière's Disease

The pathologic anatomy in Ménière's disease is largely unknown. In current hypotheses, allergic, bacterial, and metabolic disturbances are considered as etiologic factors. The picture as described by Hallpike and Cairns¹ is that of an endolymphatic idiopathic labyrinthine hydrops, or so-called glaucoma of the labyrinth (Jenkins, Portmann, and others). Furstenberg² supports the theory that the tissues involved in Ménière's disease have either an increased affinity for sodium or an unusual sensitivity to it. Graf and Poretti³ conducted experiments on guinea pigs to determine the origin of the perilymph with the use of radioactive sodium as a tracer. They discovered that the perilymph does not originate from the endolymph, because there is a great difference in their respective sodium concentrations; the level in the endolymph was always several times lower than that in the perilymph. The existence of a fairly high sodium level in the scala vestibuli a short