Effects of auditory electrical stimulation (AES) on tinnitus improvement and associated complaints.

About 10-15% of adult population experience degrees of tinnitus in their life. The purpose of present study was to determine the effectiveness of AES on tinnitus improvement and associated psychological complaints. Completing a standard tinnitus questionnaire, otolaryngological, comprehensive audiological and psycho acoustical tinnitus assessment in patients was made before and after AES. The patients received AES with a Nucleous Promontory Stimulation system. patients received bipolar square waves fewer than 400 Hz pulses (often 50 Hz) with duration of 0.5 sec. during the seven sessions of 30 min. In an attempt to measure the effects of tinnitus before and after AES, we used the Persian Tinnitus Questionnaire (TQ), designed to assess the dimensions of tinnitus complaints. The patients of our study had been unsuccessfully treated by many medical methods and gave their written consent to participate in the study, which was approved by the department & Research Center of Otolaryngology, Head & Neck Surgery, Iran University of Medical Sciences. We used extratympanic auditory electrical stimulation (EAES) to treat 42 patients with persistent tinnitus. For each patient the standard tinnitus questionnaire (TQ) was filled before and after intervention of AES. In the group of patients in whom tinnitus was improved (n = 28), the global score of TQ decreased significantly (P=0.0001), whereas the same dimension of TQ showed no remarkable changes (P=0.064) in the “unimproved” group (n = 14). The decrease in the loudness of tinnitus was significant (P=0.002), but in the unimproved group the difference in the loudness was not significant (P=0.336). The TQ is an instrument which provides a broad description from both factor analysis and clinical evidence. Our findings indicate that the dimensions of psychological complaints due to tinnitus from before to after treatment with AES were significantly decreased. In conclusion, EAES reduces the effects of the tinnitus but presents limitations, mainly due to the short duration of the electrical residual inhibition of the tinnitus. It seems that the continuous use of the electrical stimulation by external electrical stimulation produces a progressive inhibition of the tinnitus in distressing tinnitus patients.