Haro-Hernandez Elisheba, Perez-Carpena Patricia, Unnikrishnan Vishnu, Spiliopoulou Myra, Lopez-Escamez Jose A
Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Hospital Clinico Universitario San Cecilio, 18016 Granada, Spain.
Otology & Neurotology Group CTS 495, Department of Genomic Medicine, GENYO, Centre for Genomics and Oncological Research, Pfizer/University of Granada/Andalusian Regional Government, 18016 Granada, Spain.
J Clin Med. 2022 Feb 13;11(4):978. doi: 10.3390/jcm11040978.
Tinnitus is a heterogeneous condition. The aim of this study as to compare the online and hospital responses to the Spanish version of European School for Interdisciplinary Tinnitus Research screening-questionnaire (ESIT-SQ) in tinnitus individuals by an unsupervised age clustering.
A cross-sectional study was performed including 434 white Spanish patients with chronic tinnitus to assess the demographic and clinical profile through the ESIT-SQ, with 204 outpatients and 230 individuals from an online survey; a K-means clustering algorithm was used to classify both responses according to age.
Online survey showed a high proportion of Meniere's disease (MD) patients compared to both the general population and the outpatient cohort. The responses showed statistically significant differences between groups regarding education level, tinnitus-related hearing disorders (MD, hyperacusis), sleep difficulties, dyslipidemia, and other tinnitus characteristics, including duration, type of onset, the report of mitigating factors and the use of treatments. However, these differences were partially confirmed after adjusting for age.
Self-reported tinnitus surveys are a low confidence source for tinnitus phenotyping. Additional clinical evaluation is needed for tinnitus research to reach the diagnosis. Age-based cluster analysis might help to better define clinical profiles and to compare responses in ESIT-SQ among subgroups of patients with tinnitus.
耳鸣是一种异质性疾病。本研究旨在通过无监督年龄聚类比较耳鸣患者对欧洲跨学科耳鸣研究筛查问卷西班牙语版（ESIT-SQ）的在线和医院应答情况。
进行了一项横断面研究，纳入434名患有慢性耳鸣的西班牙白人患者，通过ESIT-SQ评估其人口统计学和临床特征，其中204名是门诊患者，230名是来自在线调查的个体；采用K均值聚类算法根据年龄对两种应答进行分类。
与普通人群和门诊队列相比，在线调查显示梅尼埃病（MD）患者比例较高。应答结果显示，两组在教育水平、耳鸣相关听力障碍（MD、听觉过敏）、睡眠困难、血脂异常以及其他耳鸣特征（包括持续时间、发作类型、缓解因素报告和治疗使用情况）方面存在统计学显著差异。然而，在调整年龄后，这些差异得到部分证实。
自我报告的耳鸣调查是耳鸣表型分析的低可信度来源。耳鸣研究需要额外的临床评估以实现诊断。基于年龄的聚类分析可能有助于更好地定义临床特征，并比较耳鸣患者亚组中ESIT-SQ的应答情况。
