Tinnitus: A Hospital-Based Retrospective Study

Abstract

Aims and Objectives: To find out age, sex, laterality distribution of patients with tinnitus, to investigate the type and characteristics of associated hearing loss and to find different etiology causing tinnitus. Materials and Methods: Retrospective hospital-based study. Data collected for 154 patients who attended tinnitus clinic of Department of ENT of our institute during the year 2013. Patients with incomplete data were excluded from the study. Results: Among 154 patients included for study, 73 were male and 81 were female. The highest percentage of patients were in the middle age group of 41-50 years (27.9%) followed by 31-40 years (18.83%) and 51-60 years (16.2%) with decreasing number of patients in both younger and elderly age group. Conclusion: Tinnitus can affect any age group but its prevalence increases with age without any gender predilection. Left ear involvement is slightly more common among unilateral tinnitus. Sensorineural hearing loss is most common factor associated but in one-sixth of the cases no cause has been found for tinnitus.