Relationship between tinnitus pitch and edge of hearing loss in individuals with a narrow tinnitus bandwidth

Figures & data

Figure 1. Association between hearing level and the dominant tinnitus pitch. Top and middle panels illustrate audiometric thresholds for all 129 patients in the steeper (top panel) and less-steep (middle panel) ear with median shown by the solid black line. Bottom panel shows the distribution of the dominant tinnitus pitch derived from the similarity ratings.

Table 1. Summary of audiometric information for included studies.

Study	Total number of participants with narrow tinnitus bandwidth	Frequency range of pure-tone audiometry (kHz)	Audiometer type	Type of earphone
RCT 1	10	0.125–16	Unity 2 system (Siemens, Berlin, Germany)	HDA 200 headphones (Sennheiser, Wademark, Germany)
RCT 2	9	0.125–16	Unity 2 system (Siemens, Berlin, Germany)	HDA 200 headphones (Sennheiser, Wademark, Germany)
RCT 3	7	0.125–16	Unity 2 system (Siemens, Berlin, Germany)	HDA 200 headphones (Sennheiser, Wademark, Germany)
RCT 4	96	0.125–12.5	Unity 2 system (Siemens, Berlin, Germany)	HDA 200 headphones (Sennheiser, Wademark, Germany)
Clinical cohort study	7	0.125–16	Unity 2 system (Siemens, Berlin, Germany)	HDA 200 headphones (Sennheiser, Wademark, Germany)

Figure 2. Scatterplots examining the relationship between dominant tinnitus pitch and the edge of the hearing loss in the steeper (top graph) and less-steep ear (bottom graph) in all participants with narrow tinnitus bandwidth.

Figure 3. Comparison of Pearson's correlation coefficients (dots) and confidence intervals (lines) in the current study and in Sereda et al (2011). Lines shown in black represent the subgroup of participants reporting a narrow tinnitus bandwidth. Lines shown in grey represent the whole recruited sample.

Table 2. Correlations between dominant tinnitus pitch and audiometric variables. HL = hearing loss.

		Steeper ear			Less-steep ear
	Audiometric variable	Number of ears	Correlation coefficient	P value	Number of ears	Correlation coefficient	P value
Primary analysis	Edge of the HL	107	0.282	0.003	98	0.271	0.007
Secondary analysis	Frequency with threshold of around 50 dBHL	104	0.282	0.004	104	0.204	0.038

Table 3. Details of the loadings of each of the eight principal components derived from the principal component analysis onto the original audiometric variables. Components are statistical constructs, but the individual loadings indicate the ‘meaning’ of each one. For example, principal component 1 most strongly represents the edge and the slope of hearing loss.

	Principal components
Audiometric variables	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
Edge of the HL in the steeper ear	0.813	− 0.357	0.043	− 0.308	− 0.113	− 0.184	− 0.254	− 0.055
Edge of the HL in the less-steep ear	0.745	− 0.460	0.134	0.138	0.340	− 0.204	0.179	0.082
Slope of the HL in the steeper ear	0.732	− 0.023	−0.454	− 0.220	− 0.385	0.108	0.221	0.017
Slope of the HL in the less-steep ear	0.709	− 0.066	− 0.498	0.333	0.238	0.246	− 0.119	− 0.053
Degree of the HL in the steeper ear	0.303	0.911	− 0.020	0.019	0.111	− 0.167	0.108	− 0.158
Degree of the HL in the less-steep ear	0.304	0.904	− 0.193	− 0.054	0.040	− 0.042	− 0.123	0.175
Frequency of the worst hearing level in the steeper ear	0.471	0.135	0.623	0.475	− 0.381	0.000	− 0.027	0.010
Frequency of the worst hearing level in the less-steep ear	0.428	0.189	0.752	− 0.327	0.199	0.260	0.031	− 0.004
Variance explained (%)	35.6	25.6	18.3	7.6	6.6	3.1	2.4	0.9
Eigenvalue	2.8	2.1	1.5	0.6	0.5	0.2	0.2	0.07

Figure 4. Scatterplots examining the relationship between dominant tinnitus pitch and degree of the hearing loss in the steeper (top graph) and less-steep ear (bottom graph).

Sereda M., Hall D.A., Bosnyak D.J., Edmondson-Jones M., Roberts L.E. et al. 2011. Re-examining the relationship between audiometric profile and tinnitus pitch. Int J Audiol, 50, 303–312.

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