Otoacoustic emissions findings in normal hearing patients with tinnitus

We have conducted a prospective study in order to investigate the cochlear mechanical activity in tinnitus patients with normal hearing using DPOAE (distortion product otoacoustic emission) and TEOAE (transient evoked otoacoustic emission).The aim of this study is invesitigate diagnostik values in tinnitus by answer the question that is there a otoacustic emission response reply difference between people who have got normal audition with tinnitus and people who have not got tinnitus. This study has been done at Çukurova University, Medical Faculty, Ear-Nose-Throat Department Audiology Unit. There are two groups, with tinnitus(24 subjects) and without tinnitus(11) having normal hearing. All patients underwent a detailed otorhinolaryngologic examination, audiometric evaluation including pure tone, high frequency and speech audiometry, tympanometry, acoustic stapedial reflex, DPOAE and TEOAE. We found that the DPOAE amplitudes of the patients with tinnitus and normal hearing group were significantly lower than that of the control group in 1001, 1501, 3003, 6006, 7996 Hz. We also found significantly lower TEOAE amplitudes for the patients with tinnitus than the control group in all frequencies tested includind 1000, 1400, 2000, 2800, 4000 Hz. We found high-frequency audiometry higher for the patients with tinnitus than the control group in frequencies tested 10-16 kHz. We concluded that people with tinnitus can have cochlear mechanical activity damage even though they having normal hearing threshold. TEOAE and DPOAE may be used as objective tests in the objective evaluation of tinnitus patients.Keywords : Tinnitus, Otoacustic emission, DPOAE, TEOAE