Abstract
PurposeTinnitus described as individual perception of phantom sound constitutes a significant medical problem and has become an essential subject of many studies conducted worldwide. In the study, we aimed to examine the prevalence of tinnitus among Polish hearing loss (HL) patients with identified mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) variants.MethodsAmong the selected group of unrelated HL patients with known mtDNA pathogenic variants, two questionnaires were conducted, i.e. Tinnitus Handicap Inventory translated into Polish (THI-POL) and Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) for measuring subjectively perceived tinnitus loudness, distress, annoyance and possibility of coping with this condition (VASs). Pathogenic mtDNA variants were detected with real-time PCR and sequencing of the whole mtDNA.ResultsThis is the first extensive tinnitus characterization using THI-POL and VASs questionnaires in HL patients due to mtDNA variants. We have established the prevalence of tinnitus among the studied group at 23.5%. We found that there are no statistically significant differences in the prevalence of tinnitus and its characteristic features between HL patients with known HL mtDNA variants and the general Polish population. In Polish HL patients with tinnitus, m.7511T>C was significantly more frequent than in patients without tinnitus. We observed that the prevalence of tinnitus is lower in Polish patients with m.1555A>G as compared to other available data.ConclusionsOur data suggest that the mtDNA variants causative of HL may affect tinnitus development but this effect seems to be ethnic-specific.
Highlights
Tinnitus is a generally subjective perception of phantom sound, typically described as buzzing, ringing, hissing or beeping
Tinnitus may arise as a consequence of cochlear hair cells injury or damage of the auditory pathway [6, 32, 33] but the molecular mechanism leading to tinnitus development is largely unknown
The dysfunctional organelles may in turn cause oxidative stress, which was claimed to play a role in the development of tinnitus accompanying sensorineural hearing loss (HL) [37, 38]
Summary
Tinnitus is a generally subjective perception of phantom sound, typically described as buzzing, ringing, hissing or beeping. Auditory hallucinations can be constant or intermittent with localization in one, both ears or within the head and may have different age of onset [1,2,3,4]. The etiology of tinnitus is broad and encompasses aging, hearing loss (HL), Meniere disease or environmental stressors such as noise, trauma or ototoxicity [5,6,7]. Studies in a group of 12,000 randomly selected Polish individuals have shown that tinnitus is present in approximately one in five adults (20.1%). Studies regarding the genetic background of tinnitus, conducted in Swedish twin cohorts indicated that environmental About 1–3% of tinnitus patients suffer from debilitating tinnitus, which is usually associated with sleep disturbances, loss of productivity, psychiatric distress and poor quality of life [1, 8,9,10].
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