Clinically Significant Tinnitus: Trends in a Ten Year Cohort Study

Below is a recent study that will published this month on clinically significant tinnitus. The study offers no new information; we all know that tinnitus risk increases with age. But, still, the rising burden of tinnitus on the health care system should increase demand for research funds.


Ear Hear. 2014 Dec 2. [Epub ahead of print]
Incidence Rates of Clinically Significant Tinnitus: 10-Year Trend From a Cohort Study in England.
Martinez C1, Wallenhorst C, McFerran D, Hall DA.
Author information
Abstract
OBJECTIVE::
To investigate the incidence of tinnitus that burdens the health service in England.

DESIGN::
This was an observational study of 4.7 million residents of England under 85 years of age who were at risk for developing clinically significant tinnitus (sigT). SigT was defined by a discharge from hospital with a primary diagnosis of tinnitus, or a primary care recording of tinnitus with subsequent related medical follow-up within 28 days. The database used was the Clinical Practice Research Datalink and individual records were linked to additional data from the Hospital Episode Statistics. The observational period was from January 1, 2002 to December 31, 2011. Age-, gender-, and calendar year-specific incidence rates for and cumulative incidences of sigT were estimated and a projection of new cases of sigT between 2012 and 2021 was performed.

RESULTS::
There were 14,303 incident cases of sigT identified among 26.5 million person-years of observation. The incidence rate was 5.4 new cases of sigT per 10,000 person-years (95% confidence interval: 5.3 to 5.5). The incidence rate did not depend on gender but increased with age, peaking at 11.4 per 10,000 in the age group 60 to 69 years. The annual incidence rate of sigT increased from 4.5 per 10,000 person-years in 2002 to 6.6 per 10,000 person-years in 2011. The 10-year cumulative incidence of sigT was 58.4 cases (95% confidence interval: 57.4 to 59.4) per 10,000 residents. Nearly 324,000 new cases of sigT are expected to occur in England between 2012 and 2021.

CONCLUSIONS::
Tinnitus presents a burden to the health care system that has been rising in recent years. Population-based studies provide crucial underpinning evidence; highlighting the need for further research to address issues around effective diagnosis and clinical management of this heterogeneous condition.This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

 

What I found interesting is that Google trends show that since 2004 the searches for tinnitus have been mostly constant. One would think with more and more internet users and more and our world getting louder, louder music, earphones everywhere and so on, that it would be gaining in popularity:

 

I don't know much about the keyword planner but yeah, the numbers do seem a bit low if we are to believe that 10% - 15% of population has some sort of tinnitus. Really thought tinnitus would be skyrocketing by now.

Also forgot the source for my above pic:
https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=tinnitus, ringing ears, hearing loss&cmpt=q

 

The country distribution is odd as well. Germany, Austria, Switzerland in a close group. Scandinavia. USA, UK.

 

Maybe Russia already have found a cure and that's why nobody is searching for it, but they are keeping it a secret.

 

@lapidus

no they havent
i am in touch with someone pretty high up in russia in the medical field and she has no cure.....she is however investigating trobalt and effects etc....on my behalf and out of her own interest and she wont prescribe until she knows for sure cos she says it is such a dangerous drug

 

Trobalt is totally sherbert, there nooothang wrang with it. I feool abso-tively fine. Has anyone seen my kidneys? Badgers, badgers everywhere!

 

That's only because it's related to the local language. In Scandinavia and German-speaking countries (and obviously English speaking ones) Tinnitus is the "common" word to indicate this condition and users in general are more inclined to search for things in English - not so in the rest of the world: in Italy most people would search for it in Italian e.g. acufene or "fischio alle orecchie" (ringing in ears).

that map basically indicates the countries most likely to also use the word tinnitus to refer and search for a treatment for this condition.

Not that surprising. The graph indicates "popularity". That is by definition a relative term - it doesn't say if the absolute number of searches for tinnitus is going up or down - only its occurrence relative to the total number of searches. Also - I think tinnitus and hearing loss are not the "first" things you would look for when developing the condition - indeed if you try only ringing ears (the symptom) the results are trending up.
Similarly, before searching for hearing loss, you would look for an hearing test - results are also trending up in that case.

As I posted above, that's also the language selection bias. As you can see the only search that grows is the one for tinnitus (the only word used also outside English speaking countries).

110,000 monthly searches in US for tinnitus is not low, to put it into perspective: headache has 50,000 hits, dentist is above 300,000.

 

What is tinnitus?
Tinnitus is commonly described as a ringing in the ears, but it also can sound like roaring, clicking, hissing, or buzzing. It may be soft or loud, high pitched or low pitched. You might hear it in either one or both ears. Roughly 10 percent of the adult population of the United States has experienced tinnitus lasting at least five minutes in the past year. This amounts to nearly 25 million Americans.

According to this http://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/hearing/pages/tinnitus.aspx

So, whenever I read online that tinnitus was so prevalent that 50 million Americans have it, I assumed they have it longer than "5 minutes" a year.

 

The map reminds me of what that incredible acupuncturist I saw in Bangkok for my tinnitus and hyperacusis said (2007 and 2013), that he hardly ever treats Asians for tinnitus, just or mostly "Farang" = Westerners. he even asked in China for me where he goes to teach each year and had the same said to him there.
This despite the INCREDIBLE noise exposures without ear protection (anyone been to India?!) I saw anywhere I went in the region.
Also, I have seem official reports of tinnitus being at about 10%+ of the population in China and similar to other countries globally.

So..."interesting". Many possible conclusions can be drawn from that but very much speculation. It does appear that c/o Google, tinnitus is a lot less significant than the latest widget, gossip, or whatever. Sigh!

Zimichael