Audiometric Profiles in Patients With Normal Hearing and Bilateral or Unilateral Tinnitus

HYPOTHESIS:Patients with subjective nonpulsatile tinnitus and a normal conventional audiogram have more objective audiologic evidence of hidden hearing loss and deafferentation-related pathology than patients without tinnitus. BACKGROUND:The aim of this study was to assess the epidemiologic characteristics and audiologic profiles, including auditory brainstem response (ABR), distortion product otoacoustic emission, and threshold-equalizing noise test results, in patients with tinnitus and a normal audiogram. METHODS:The test results for 20 patients complaining of nonpulsatile chronic tinnitus were compared with those of 91 subjects with normal hearing and no tinnitus. RESULTS:Patients with unilateral tinnitus had higher tinnitus handicap inventory scores than those with bilateral tinnitus (p