A preliminary study on pharmacological treatment of idiopathic high pitched subjective tinnitus of various durations

CHU Zhihua; ZHANG Xiaoying; MENG Binbin

doi:10.3969/j.issn.1672-2922.2016.03.013

Abstract：Objective To study the status of pharmacological treatment, its scheme selection, short-term and long-term effects in patients with high-pitched subjective idiopathic tinnitus of various durations. Methods A prospective, randomized and controlled study was carried out in 219 patients with acute, subacute or chronic tinnitus, grouped according to their tinnitus durations. Patients in each group were randomly selected to be treated with one of three drug schemes for 3 weeks. Treatment effects were evaluated at three time points using the Tinnitus Evaluation Questionnaire (TEQ, by Liu and Li). The SPSS13.0 software was used for data analysis. Results At the end of follow-up, 15 patients (6.8%) showed com-plete recovery, 32 (14.6%) showed significant improvement, 84 (38.4%) showed some improvement and 88 (40.2%) showed no improvement. The rates of complete recovery were 18.6% (13/70) in the acute group, 2.9% (2/68) in the sub-acute group and 0% (0/81) in the chronic group. Total effectiveness rates in the acute, subacute and chronic groups were 68.6%(48/70), 58.8%(40/68) and 53.1%(43/81), respectively. Both short-term and long-term outcomes in the acute group were superior to those in the subacute and chronic groups, although there was no significant difference in the total effective-ness rate between the subacute and chronic groups, or between short-term and long-term outcomes among all groups. Be-tween the Xueshuantong and combination drug schemes, the total effectiveness rates among the three groups was different at the 2nd and 3rd time points, but not at the 1st time point. However, results from the steroid scheme showed significant difference as compared with the other drug schemes at all three time points. Conclusions Pharmacological treatments have different roles in treating high-pitched subjective idiopathic tinnitus of different durations. In patients with acute tinnitus, drug therapies should be engaged aggressively, with a combined drug scheme containing steroid being preferred. Patients with subacute and chronic tinnitus appear to have a poor response to pharmacological treatments. Short-term and long-term effects of pharmacological treatments appear stable in patients with tinnitus, regardless of its duration.