[The significance of platelet adhesiveness and aggregation and free fatty acids by functional disorders of the internal ear (author's transl)].

The significance of platelet adhesiveness and aggregation in the early phase of thrombosis as well as in the development of degenerative vascular wall processes has today become an established fact. In this connection the plasmalipids are of special interest, of which the free fatty acids (FFA) represent a sensitive indicator both for the adrenergic reactivity of the organism and the process of stress-conditioned circulatory reactions. In the present study 65 clinical cases with functional disorders of the internal ear were examined regarding to the platelet adhesiveness and FFA, differtiating only between sudden loss of hearing (n=28) and functional disorders of different symptomatology (n=37). Our preliminary statistics showed in 64% of the patients with a sudden loss of hearing mainly an average, and in 84% of the 37 examined functional disorders of different symptomatology a slight to a high increase in the adhesiveness. The FFA-concentrations increased in approximately 90% of the 23 examined cases with functional disorders of the internal ear. It is remarkable, that the measured adhesiveness and serum-FFA-concentrations are comparable to the high values obtained from atheromatous vascular processes, venous thrombosis, cardial and cerebral infarctions, intermittent cerebrovascular insufficiency as well as from transient impaired vision caused by microembolism. Even if the high percentage in the FFA-increase, under strictest observance of the patient's resting position at the time of the blood withdrawal, is presumably much below the measured value, it still indicates an increased tonus of the sympathetic nervous system in the majority of the examined patients. The clinical satisfactory results obtained after timely applications of numerous agents inhibiting aggregation and adhesiveness, as well as reducing the lipids, also indicate a process of stress-conditioned circulatory reactions and the existence of atheromatous respectively thrombo-embolic vascular processes in a number of acute or intermittent functional disorders of the internal ear.