Objective. To analyse the vestibular function characteristics of patients with Meniere's disease and acute hypophonic sensorineural hearing loss in order to find more reliable and objective ancillary tests that will reduce misdiagnosis and missed diagnoses. Methods. From January 2021 to December 2021, 60 healthy adults who underwent physical examination in our hospital were included in the control group, 60 patients with Meniere's disease were included in Study Group A, and 60 patients with acute low-tone sensorineural hearing loss were recruited in Study Group B. All participants underwent the caloric test (CT), video-head impulse test (vHIT), headshaking test (HST), and vestibular-evoked myogenic potential (VEMP) testing, which includes ocular vestibular-evoked myogenic potential (oVEMP) and cervical vestibular-evoked myogenic potential (cVEMP). Results. Statistical analyses of unilateral weakness and directional preponderance (DP) in the two groups of patients found no significant differences between the two groups ( P > 0.05 ). There was no statistically significant difference in the abnormal rate of vHIT and HST results between the two study groups ( P > 0.05 ). There was no significant difference in the wave latencies, interwave intervals, and amplitudes of cVEMP and oVEMP, among the three groups ( P > 0.05 ). Conclusion. This study found that factors affecting CT, vHIT, HST, and VEMP results included age, head posture and position during testing, stimulus type, manipulation method, and control of muscle tone, and also those that are related to the testing instrument, statistical software, and manipulation procedures, resulting in different excitation rates and testing parameters. The small sample size prevented a comprehensive assessment of the differences in vestibular function between patients with Meniere's disease and acute hypotonic sensorineural hearing loss, and a larger sample size will be investigated in the future to provide useful insight into the diagnosis, treatment and differentiation of Meniere’s disease, and acute hypotonic sensorineural hearing loss.

Prognosis of sudden deafness remains a challenge in clinics due to inhomogeneity of the disease. Here we report our retrospective study aimed to explore the value of coagulative markers including activated partial thromboplastin time (APTT), prothrombin time (PT), plasma fibrinogen (FIB) and plasma D-Dimer in the prognosis of the patients. The study included a total of 160 patients, of which 92 had valid responses, and 68 had invalid responses and 68 had ineffective responses. APTT, PT, and the levels of FIB and D-D in serum were compared between the two groups, and their prognostic values were determined in terms of area-under-curve (AUC) in receiver operating curve (ROC) analysis, sensitivity and specificity. The correlations of APTT, PT and FIB to hearing loss degree were also assessed. Serum APTT and PT, FIB and D-Dimer levels were lower in patients with sudden deafness that responded poorly to treatments. ROC analysis showed that APTT, PT, FIB and D-Dimer had high AUC, sensitivity and specificity for non-responders, particularly when used in combination (AUC=0.91, sensitivity=86.76%, and specificity=82.61%). Patients with a higher hearing loss degree (>91dB) also demonstrated significantly lower values of APTT and PT and higher levels of serum FIB and D-Dimer than those with a lower hearing loss degree. Our study demonstrated that APTT, PT, and serum levels of FIB and D-D could serve as strong predictors of sudden deafness, potentiating the use of these tests to identify patients that respond poorly to treatments.

Background. Cytoplasmic activation/proliferation-associated protein-1 (CAPRIN1) plays an important role in carcinogenesis, whereas its role in laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma remains unclear. This study was designed to investigate the roles of CAPRIN1 in glycolysis and chemoresistance and its underlying mechanisms in laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma. Methods. Cell viability was evaluated by using CCK-8 and colony formation assays. qRT-PCR, Western blotting, and immunohistochemistry were used to determine the expressions of target genes. Gene knockdown and overexpression cell lines were constructed by performing transfection of siRNAs and plasmids, respectively. Luciferase reporter assay, RNA pull-down, and RNA immunoprecipitation assays were applied to evaluate the RNA-protein interactions. The Kaplan–Meier analysis was performed to evaluate the relationship between gene expression and overall survival rate. Results. An elevation of CAPRIN1 was identified to be associated with chemoresistance and poor prognosis in patients with laryngeal cancer. The increase of CAPRIN1 promoted glycolysis and chemoresistance, whereas the knockdown of CAPRIN1 inhibited glycolysis and chemoresistance in laryngeal cancer cells. The underlying mechanistic investigation revealed that CAPRIN1 promoted glycolysis and chemoresistance of laryngeal cancer cells by the regulation of Zic Family Member 5 (ZIC5). Conclusion. CAPRIN1 promoted laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma glycolysis and chemoresistance by the regulation of ZIC5.