How effect is educational counseling prior to middle ear surgery for patients with both middle ear diseases and consistent tinnitus?

Abstract

Background: The management of patients with tinnitus who receive middle ear surgery has not been established.

Aims: The aim of this study is (1) how many patients who receive middle ear surgery have tinnitus and (2) how educational counselling and middle ear surgery is effective with consistent tinnitus.

Subjects and methods: Twenty four cases out of 90 cases accounted for 26.7% of the middle ear diseases scheduled for surgery in the past two years. Of the 42 patients with hearing loss in the second year, 14 had consistent and intermittent tinnitus. Among them we have 6 patients complaining consistent tinnitus and we examined the change in the Tinnitus Handicap Inventory (THI) for patients with tinnitus before and after surgery.

Results: Ten out of 13 cases (about 76.9%) reported that postoperative tinnitus improved. THI score in two cases showed worse.

Conclusions and significance: Two cases showed worse THI in both mixed hearing loss cases with a small hearing improvement. The mechanism of improvement is similar to tinnitus retraining therapy including hearing aid because the increase in external sound input through hearing restoration after surgery to avoid silence.

Chinese abstract

背景：耳鸣患者中耳手术后的护理尚未建立。

目的：本研究的目的是（1）确立接受中耳手术的患者中有多少人有耳鸣, （2）调查教育咨询和中耳手术对耳鸣的疗效。

研究对象与方法：过去两年中, 90例中耳病患者中的24例接受了手术治疗, 占中耳病患者的26.7%。第二年42例听力损失患者中, 14例有持续性和间歇性耳鸣。其中有6例患者持续性耳鸣。我们检查了耳鸣患者手术前后耳鸣障碍量表（THI）的变化。

结果：13例患者中有10例（76.9%）术后耳鸣改善。两例患者的THI评分变差。

结论与意义：混合性听力损失病例中少数表现出更差的THI, 听力改善较小。其改善机制与耳鸣再训练疗法（包括助听器）相似, 因为术后通过听力恢复增加外部声音输入以避免静默。

Keywords:

• Tinnitus
• counseling
• middle ear disease
• middle ear surgery

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.