In 1985 the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery Committee on Hearing and Equilibrium established revised guidelines for reporting treatment results for Menière's disease. Since then little information regarding the newly adapted criteria and their effects on the evaluation process has appeared. Thus we compared the results of different surgical procedures for Menière's disease using both the 1985 and 1972 guidelines. One hundred nine surgical procedures from 1969 to 1985 were reviewed. Six different surgical procedures were evaluated: the Cody-Tack, cochleosacculotomy, endolymphatic mastoid shunt, endolymphatic subarachnoid shunt, translabyrinthine vestibular nerve section, and transcanal labyrinthectomy. Results show that 68% of patients who had a Cody-Tack procedure continued to have vertiginous episodes in the same frequency postoperatively. Hearing was worse in 17 of these 25 patients. Of the patients who had a cochleosacculotomy, most had significant control of their vertiginous symptoms, but 10 patients had greater than 10 dB hearing loss postoperatively. Patients who had an endolymphatic mastoid shunt performed had better results when the 1972 guidelines were applied. In this group, the 1985 guidelines indicate that only 35% of the patients had significant relief of their vertiginous symptoms and 47% had hearing loss greater than 10 dB postoperatively. Six of the seven patients who underwent an endolymphatic subarachnoid shunt obtained significant relief of their vertiginous episodes, but hearing loss was more than 10 dB in four patients. Those patients who had either a labyrinthectomy or a translabyrinthine vestibular nerve section had relief of their vertiginous episodes. We conclude that the new guidelines appear to be superior to the 1972 guidelines for reporting results for the treatment of Menière's disease.