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REVIEW article

Front. Audiol. Otol.
Sec. Otology and Neurotology
Volume 2 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fauot.2024.1479628

Perilymphatic Fistula: A Historical Overview of Publication Trends

Provisionally accepted
Dianela Perdomo Dianela Perdomo 1*Wesley W. Schoo Wesley W. Schoo 1,2Rachel Stemme Rachel Stemme 1Desi P. Schoo Desi P. Schoo 1John P. Carey John P. Carey 1Bryan K. Ward Bryan K. Ward 1
  • 1 Johns Hopkins Hospital, Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Baltimore, United States
  • 2 University of Iowa College of Medicine, Iowa City, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Background: Perilymph fistula (PLF) can cause symptoms of dizziness, vertigo, and fluctuating hearing. We hypothesized that publications on PLF have decreased in recent years relative to other inner ear disorders with overlapping symptoms.Methods: We performed a Scopus search using the terms "perilymphatic fistula" OR "perilymph fistula," limited to original studies or reviews involving human subjects published in English before 2022. We noted the senior author's institution, country affiliation, and publishing journal. The Kendall rank correlation coefficient test was used to analyze the trend of each variable over the past 30 years. Using the same search strategy, we compared these data to those from vestibular neuritis (VN), Meniere's disease (MD), superior semicircular canal dehiscence (SSCD) and benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV).Results: 698 PLF publications were returned. The top publishing country was the United States (n=334), the top publishing journal was the American Journal of Otology/Otology and Neurotology (n=68), and the top publishing institution was the University of Pittsburgh (n=15). In the past 30 years (n=501), there was no trend in the frequency of annual PLF publications (τ=-0.150, p=0.265). Still there were positive trends in publications on vestibular neuritis (τ=0.724, p<0.001), Meniere's disease (τ=0.587, p<0.001), superior canal dehiscence syndrome (τ=0.840, p<0.001), and benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (τ=0.882, p<0.001) 5,398 PLF cases were identified, of which 4,356 specified the etiology; the majority identified an inciting insult (74.8%, n=3,257).Conclusions: The absence of diagnostic criteria for PLF may hinder its appeal to researchers as similar syndromes have had diagnostic consensus documents set forth. Given the greater number of cases with inciting insults, efforts to define a diagnostic criterion should focus on this subtype.

    Keywords: Perilymph fistula, Vertigo, publication trends, Hearing Loss, spontaneous vertigo

    Received: 12 Aug 2024; Accepted: 27 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Perdomo, Schoo, Stemme, Schoo, Carey and Ward. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Dianela Perdomo, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Baltimore, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.