Comparing Tinnitus Tuning Curves and Psychoacoustic Tuning Curves.
Philippe Fournier, Malgorzata Wrzosek, Michel Paolino and 3 others
PMID 31588855WHAT IT FOUND
Tinnitus was usually harder to mask than a matching tone, and most tinnitus masking curves did not show the sharp tuning seen for external tones.
Key findings
01Most tinnitus tuning curves were flat (n = 22).
02At the tinnitus frequency, 23 out of 32 patients needed a higher masker level to mask tinnitus than to mask a matching tone.
03Noise-like tinnitus required a larger extra masker level at the tinnitus frequency than tone-like tinnitus (16.2 dB vs 3.2 dB).
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
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What it does not show
The study used retrospective medical records and analyzed 32 of 38 patient records, so it was not a prospective treatment trial. Six excluded patients had changing tinnitus, severe hearing loss, or difficulty ignoring tinnitus in the other ear, so results may not apply to those groups. Hearing tests were missing or not done at the same time as psychoacoustic measurements for six patients, and those cases were not included in some sensation-level analyses. The study measured temporary masking levels, not whether masking reduced tinnitus distress, improved daily function, or worked as a treatment. Masker frequencies above the tinnitus frequency were not tested, so cochlear dead regions may have been underdetected.
Declared interests
The supplied text includes a funding and conflicts heading but the funder details are truncated; the article is tagged as Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that sound masking is an effective tinnitus treatment. The study measured the noise level needed to temporarily mask tinnitus or a matching tone, not whether masking reduced distress, improved daily function, or worked over time.