Aural Manifestations of Leukemia

In 1856, nine years after Virchow had established leukemia as a definite clinical entity, Vidal made the significant observation that disturbances of hearing were often associated with this disease. While this observation was subsequently confirmed by other investigators, it remained for Politzer1in 1884 to lay the groundwork for the present knowledge of the pathologic changes that occur in the ear in leukemia. He was the first to section the temporal bones in a case of myelogenous leukemia and to correlate the clinical with the pathologic observations. There soon followed reports of individual cases with necropsies by Gradenigo,2Steinbrugge,3Waggenhauser4and others. In 1897 Schwabach5reviewed 15 cases, 10 previously reported by others, to which were added 5 of his own. Reports of single cases by the English authors Weber and Lake,6Finlaysin7and Mott8then appeared in the literature. In 1906 Alexander9published a comprehensive monograph on the subject