Relating tinnitus features and audiometric characteristics in a cohort of 34 tinnitus subjects

Abstract

Although tinnitus, the conscious perception of a sound without a sound source external or internal to the body, is highly correlated with hearing loss, the precise nature of such correlation remains still unknown. People with high pitch tinnitus are used to suffer from high frequency hearing losses, and vice versa, low pitch tinnitus is mostly associated with low frequency hearing losses. However, many subjects with low or high frequency losses do no develop tinnitus. Thus, studies trying to relate audiometric characteristics and tinnitus features are still relevant. This article presents a correlational study of audiometric and tinnitus variables in a sample of 34 subjects, paying special attention to the heterogeneous subtypes of both audiometry shape and tinnitus etiology. Our results, which concur with others previously published, demonstrate that the tinnitus pitch, the main frequency of the tinnitus spectrum, in subjects with high-steep high-frequency and continuously steep hearing losses, are highly correlated with the frequency at which hearing loss reaches 50 dB HL.