von Wedel H, von Wedel U C, Zorowka P
Hals-Nasen-Ohren-Universitätsklinik Köln, FRG.
Acta Otolaryngol Suppl. 1990;476:195-201. doi: 10.3109/00016489109127278.
We report on a study of tinnitus in more than 400 patients 20 to 80 years old who had suffered from tinnitus for more than one year. Quality of tinnitus, localization, frequency range, severity, masking and residual inhibition effects show no age dependence. The possible causes of tinnitus, is onset and duration and factors that increase or reduce tinnitus also show no age dependence. Regarding the grade of annoyance judged from a subjective scaling, younger patients seen to suffer more from tinnitus than do older subjects, who seem to compensate their tinnitus more often. With regard to the different therapeutic methods used in this study (transtympanal electrostimulation, iontophoresis, biofeedback, tinnitus masker, hearing aid), the stable benefit over more than one year experienced by those patients fitted with a hearing aid was encouraging for young and old subjects. In both groups, about 3% of the patients could be successfully equipped with a tinnitus masker. Independent of age, the improvement by the other methods is less than 1%. Our results show that sufficient prognostic data on the efficiency of a therapeutic method cannot be perceived from the different tinnitus measurements for either the young or the old subjects.
我们报告了一项针对400多名年龄在20至80岁之间、耳鸣时间超过一年的患者的研究。耳鸣的性质、定位、频率范围、严重程度、掩蔽和残余抑制效应均未显示出年龄依赖性。耳鸣的可能病因、发病情况、持续时间以及加重或减轻耳鸣的因素也未显示出年龄依赖性。从主观评分判断的烦恼程度来看，年轻患者似乎比老年患者更受耳鸣困扰，而老年患者似乎更常对耳鸣进行代偿。关于本研究中使用的不同治疗方法（鼓室内电刺激、离子导入、生物反馈、耳鸣掩蔽器、助听器），佩戴助听器的患者在一年多时间里获得的稳定益处对年轻和老年患者都令人鼓舞。在两组中，约3%的患者可以成功佩戴耳鸣掩蔽器。与年龄无关，其他方法的改善率不到1%。我们的结果表明，无论是年轻患者还是老年患者，从不同的耳鸣测量中都无法获得关于治疗方法疗效的充分预后数据。
