Whole-blood filterability in sudden deafness.

Sixteen patients with sudden deafness (SD), diagnosed on the basis of a battery of audiometric tests, but with no other medical or surgical pathology requiring drug treatment, underwent monitoring of their hemorheological profiles to see whether disturbances in the microcirculation could be linked to SD. Plasma viscosity, the filterabilities, (using a low-shear positive pressure system) through 5-microns-diameter pore Nuclepore filters, of whole blood and red and unfractionated white cells were monitored in 16 SD patients and 32 controls matched for age, sex and socioeconomic status. Whole blood filterability and the filterability of the red blood cells were significantly impaired in the SD patients, which suggests that alterations in the microcirculation are linked, in some way, to sudden deafness.