This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Related articles  • Similar articles in JAMA  Topic Collections  • Otolaryngology/ Head & Neck Surgery  • Hearing Loss/ Deafness  • Alert me on articles by topic  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 117 words of the full text and any section headings.

To the Editor: Dr Harris and colleagues¹ found that methotrexate treatment failed to maintain the hearing improvement achieved with high dose glucocorticoid treatment in patients with autoimmune inner ear disease (AIED). Several of these authors have previously written about the association between AIED and a serum antibody to a 68-kDa bovine inner ear protein (subsequently identified as inducible heat shock protein 70 (HSP70).^2-3 It would be of interest to know how many of the patients who underwent the prednisone challenge had this serum antibody, and whether responsiveness to glucorticoid was related to presence of the antibody, as previously reported.³ Similarly, the authors should report the prevalence of the antibody among patients in the methotrexate and placebo groups.

Kurt J. Bloch, MD
Department of Medicine
Massachusetts General Hospital
Boston

1. Harris JP, Weisman MH, Derebery JM, et al. Treatment of corticosteroid-responsive autoimmune inner ear disease with methotrexate: a randomized controlled trial. JAMA. 2003;290:1875-1883. FREE FULL TEXT 2. Harris JP, Sharp PA. Inner ear autoantibodies in patients with rapidly progressive sensorineural hearing loss. Laryngoscope. 1990;100:516-524. ISI | PUBMED 3. Moscicki RA, San Martin JE, Quintero CH, Rauch SD, Nadol JB Jr, Bloch KJ. Serum antibody to inner ear proteins in patients with progressive hearing loss: correlation with disease activity and response to corticosteroid treatment. JAMA. 1994;272:611-616. FREE FULL TEXT

Letters Section Editor: Stephen J. Lurie, MD, PhD, Senior Editor.

JAMA. 2004;291:303.

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?

RELATED ARTICLES

Serologic Factors in Autoimmune Ear Disease—Reply
Jeffrey Harris
JAMA. 2004;291(3):303.
EXTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Treatment of Corticosteroid-Responsive Autoimmune Inner Ear Disease With Methotrexate: A Randomized Controlled Trial
Jeffrey P. Harris, Michael H. Weisman, Jennifer M. Derebery, Mark A. Espeland, Bruce J. Gantz, A. Julianna Gulya, Paul E. Hammerschlag, Maureen Hannley, Gordon B. Hughes, Richard Moscicki, Ralph A. Nelson, John K. Niparko, Steven D. Rauch, Steven A. Telian, and Patrick E. Brookhouser
JAMA. 2003;290(14):1875-1883.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT