Further observations in the eighth nerve in Menière's disease.

Forty patients with advanced Menière's disease were operated upon by vestibular or eighth nerve neurectomy. The biopsied nerve specimens were studed by light and electron microscopy. Round areas containing no or very few axons and bundles of proliferated processes of fibrous astrocytes were found in six cases. A combination of clinical and histopathologic findings suggests that some patients with symptoms identical to Menière's disease might have a primary neuronal disease leading to nonspecific reparative response by fibrous astrocytes.