Combined therapy may give hope to sufferers of tinnitus

PATIENT ADVOCATES have given a cautious welcome to new research that offers hope to sufferers of tinnitus, in which the person affected experiences a sustained ringing in the ears.

According to research just published in The Lancet, a multidisciplinary approach combining cognitive behaviour therapy with sound-based tinnitus retraining therapy is significantly more effective than available treatments.

In the Dutch study, researchers recruited 492 adults with tinnitus; 245 were randomly assigned to the new treatment and 247 to usual care. Questionnaires were then used to measure health-related quality of life, tinnitus severity and tinnitus impairment. After 12 months, patients in the specialised care group reported improved quality of life and decreased tinnitus severity and impairment compared with those receiving standard treatment.

Tinnitus affects up to 21 per cent of adults at some point in their lifetime. Many treatments are offered for tinnitus, but there is very little evidence about which ones work best and few studies have compared treatments against each other.

In this study, the researchers from Maastricht University used tinnitus retraining therapy involving counselling sessions and exposure to neutral external sound. In addition they used a form of stepped care in which a team of audiologists, psychologists, speech therapists and social workers gave different levels of care according to the needs of individual patients.

Commenting on their research, the authors said, “Our findings could lead to consensus in policy about best practice in treatment of tinnitus, standard choices in referral trajectories, and the implementation of standardised tinnitus assessment and thereby more easily comparable outcomes.”

Jean Scott, chairwoman of the Irish Tinnitus Association, told The Irish Times, “We have heard of so many ‘new cures for tinnitus’ over a number of years that we await with cautious optimism any claims that there is a cure. But the association is in favour of a multidisciplinary approach to tinnitus treatment,” she said.

Welcoming the new study, Vivienne Michael, chief executive of Deafness Research UK, said, “We know that some tinnitus therapies can help relieve tinnitus for some sufferers and also that a combination of therapies can sometimes be effective but many patients are still simply told to go away and live with the condition. There has been far too little research to provide the evidence base needed to ensure that not only are clinicians aware of the effectiveness of various treatment options but that funding is made available for tinnitus treatment wherever patients live.”