Caloric and vestibular evoked myogenic potential tests in evaluating children with benign paroxysmal vertigo

OBJECTIVE: This study applied caloric and vestibular evoked myogenic potential (VEMP) tests to evaluate whether children with benign paroxysmal vertigo (BPV) shares similar vestibular features with basilar type migraine. METHODS: Twenty subjects of each group including healthy and BPV children were enrolled in this study. Each subject underwent audiometry, caloric and VEMP tests. Diagnosis of BPV was based on the International Classification of Headache Disorder, second edition. RESULTS: All BPV children had normal hearing, bilaterally. Caloric test revealed normal responses in 13 patients and abnormal responses in 7 patients (35%). VEMP test showed 50% abnormality in BPV children, including absent and delayed responses. However, when results of caloric and VEMP testing were considered together, 70% of BPV children had abnormality, exhibiting non-significant difference compared with 75% abnormality in basilar type migraine. CONCLUSIONS: A combination of caloric and VEMP results reveals higher abnormality (70%) in BPV children, sharing similar features with basilar type migraine in adults, given the similarity of the two disorders. Thus, caloric and VEMP tests may serve as supplementary diagnostic tools in evaluating children with BPV.