From: Eur Arch Otorhinolaryngol. 2010 Jun 25. [Epub ahead of print]
The aim of this work is to study the characteristics of tinnitus both in normal hearing subjects and in patients with hearing loss. The study considered tinnitus sufferers, ranging from 21 to 83 years of age, who were referred to the Audiology Section of Palermo University in the years 2006-2008. The following parameters were considered: age, sex, hearing threshold, tinnitus laterality, tinnitus duration, tinnitus measurements and subjective disturbance caused by tinnitus. The sample was divided into Group1 (G1), 115 subjects with normal hearing, and Group2 (G2), 197 subjects with hearing loss. Especially for G2, there was a predominance of males compared to females; the highest percentage of tinnitus resulted in the decades 61-70 and >70 with a significant difference for G2 demonstrating that the hearing status and the elderly represent the principal tinnitus-related factors.
The hearing impairment resulted in most cases of sensorineural hearing loss type and was limited to the high frequencies; the 72.1% of the patients with sensorineural hearing loss had a high-pitched tinnitus, while the 88.4% of the patients with a high-frequency sensorineural hearing loss had a high-pitched tinnitus. As to the subjective discomfort, the catastrophic category was the most representative among G1 with a significant difference between the two groups; no correlation was found between the level of tinnitus intensity and the tinnitus annoyance confirming the possibility that tinnitus discomfort is elicited by a certain degree of psychological distress as anxiety, depression, irritability and phobias.
In Auris Nasus Larynx. 2010 Apr 27. Characteristics of tinnitus with or without hearing loss: Clinical observations in Sicilian tinnitus patients. It was concluded that the hearing status and the elderly represent the principal tinnitus related factors; moreover tinnitus characteristics differ in the two groups for tinnitus pitch. There is, in fact, a statistically significant association between high-pitched tinnitus and high-frequency sensorineural hearing loss suggesting that the auditory pathway reorganization induced by hearing loss could be one of the main source of the tinnitus sensation.
In Eur Arch Otorhinolaryngol. 2008 Nov;265(11):1295-300. Tinnitus with or without hearing loss: are its characteristics different? This study confirmed that tinnitus is most frequently associated with hearing loss. The characteristics of tinnitus in normal hearing subjects, except for the subjective judgment of tinnitus intensity, the pitch and the inhibition, are significantly different for those observed in subjects with hearing loss. The association of tinnitus and hearing deficit seems to increase the perceived severity of the symptom.
