By Cheryl Tanita, Au.D., CCC-A
Scientific discoveries by University of California researchers have led to the development of a new device that shows great promise in providing relief from tinnitus. Called Serenade and manufactured by Sound Cure, the device uses low frequency electric stimuli called S-tones to suppress tinnitus.
Research has shown that S-Tones can produce synchronized, robust neural activity in the auditory cortex. These tones may address the underlying neurological cause of tinnitus and suppress the ringing, hissing or whooshing people experience as tinnitus. S-Tones offer a different therapy than what has been available in the past.
According to a UCI researcher, “The mechanisms underlying tinnitus suppression are different from those in tinnitus masking. Masking attempts to divert a patient’s attention away from the tinnitus. Suppression is a physiologic process where sounds—in this case, patterned sounds—may likely be modulating the activity of the auditory cortex and interrupting tinnitus generation.” S-Tones do not need to be loud to be effective. The researchers found that although the presentation level is softer than the level of the tinnitus, it still may completely eliminate the perception of the tinnitus. They found “The overall level of the sound environment is less than the tinnitus alone.”
The Serenade system consists of earphones and a handheld device programmed with sounds customized for each unique patient’s tinnitus. Serenade has been shown to provide both short term relief and long-term benefits. Serenade needs to be programmed by an audiologist specially trained in the proprietary set of algorithms used to evaluate a patient’s tinnitus and create the sounds most likely to be effective.
Shohet Ear Associates is among the first practices in Orange County to offer the Serenade System. To read more about the product, click here
A new study of 46,000 households by the Better Hearing Institute has found that there are nearly twice as many tinnitus sufferers in the U.S. than previously believed—close to thirty million Americans. And for many of these patients, hearing aids significantly helped them with their tinnitus.
If you or a loved one is afflicted with tinnitus, you know how disruptive it can be to a person’s quality of life. Tinnitus is the perception of a sound that has no external source. It is often described as “ringing in the ears,” humming or buzzing, and can be perceived in one ear, both ears, or in the head. Exposure to extreme noise is the leading cause of tinnitus, and people with tinnitus almost always have accompanying hearing loss, according to the study authors. Tinnitus is now the number one service-connected disability of returning military personnel from Iraq and Afghanistan. Unfortunately, there is no known cure for tinnitus.
“The good news is there are effective therapies available to help people cope,” said Sergei Kochkin, PhD, BHI’s Executive Director and co-author of the study. “In particular, we found that a variety of sound therapies and/or hearing aids in conjunction with counseling can help. In fact, 43.5 percent of survey respondents with tinnitus were helped at least mildly with hearing aids. And three out of 10 were helped moderately-to-substantially. For those whose audiologists used best practices in fitting hearing aids, that figure jumped to 50 percent.”
How do hearing aids help? Hearing aids amplify the sounds you are supposed to hear, so the loudness or prominence of the tinnitus is reduced. Taking the focus off the tinnitus means relief for many people. Hearing aids also reduce the stress associated with intensive listening by improving communication, which in turn helps relieve tinnitus symptoms.
The study findings were published in the November issue of Hearing Review. It is the largest study of its kind. To read more, click here.
By Joni Doherty, MD, PhD
Neurofibromatosis type 2 is a disorder characterized by the growth of noncancerous (i.e., benign) tumors in the nervous system. The most common tumors associated with neurofibromatosis type 2 (NF2) are called vestibular schwannomas, or acoustic neuromas, and are the hallmark of this disease. These tumors develop along the nerve that carries information from the inner ear to the brain (the auditory nerve). Tumors that occur on nerves in other areas of the brain or spinal cord are also commonly seen with this condition.
The signs and symptoms of NF2 usually appear during adolescence or in a person's early twenties, although onset can occur at any age. The most frequent early symptoms of acoustic neuromas are hearing loss, ringing in the ears (tinnitus), and problems with balance. In most cases, these tumors occur in both ears by age 30. If tumors develop in other parts of the brain or spinal cord, signs and symptoms vary according to their location. Complications of tumor growth can include changes in vision or sensation, numbness or weakness in the arms or legs, and fluid buildup in the brain. Recent studies estimate that the incidence of NF2 may be as high as 1 in 25,000 people.
Fortunately, a new treatment is currently under investigation for treating acoustic neuromas that result from NF2. I am involved in a Phase II clinical trial on RAD001, an alternative drug therapy for neurofibromatosis. The purpose of the study is to determine if RAD001 treatment will shrink or slow the growth of the vestibular schwannoma(s) in NF2 patients. Secondary objectives include determining if RAD001 treatment will improve hearing ability in NF2 patients. RAD001 is an oral drug that is approved by Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for other types of tumors, it is not approved by the FDA for treatment of NF2 related tumors. If you would like additional information on this clinical trial, Download NF2 artcle for House Calls
By Cheryl Tanita, M.S., Au.D.
Shohet Ear Associates is the first practice in Orange County to offer the SoundBite™ Hearing System, an innovative approach to treating patients with single-sided deafness. SoundBite is the world’s first removable and non-surgical hearing solution to use the well-established principle of bone conduction to imperceptibly transmit sound via the teeth to the inner ears. It is designed to help people regain their spatial hearing ability and rejoin the conversation of life.
Sound waves travel through either air or bone to arrive at our inner ears. SoundBite takes advantage of a person’s natural tooth structure as the bone conductor to transmit imperceptible noise vibrations to the inner ears and produce clear, high quality sound. Many familiar sounds are heard through bone conduction, such as chattering your teeth, crunching on potato chips or scratching your scalp.
SoundBite Hearing System consists of two user-friendly components. One piece is an easy to insert and remove In-The-Mouth (ITM) hearing device, which is custom made to fit around the upper, left or right back teeth. The other is a small Behind-The-Ear (BTE) microphone unit worn on the impaired ear. SoundBite is nearly invisible when worn. No dental work or modifications to the teeth are required.
In a clinical trial, 95% of SoundBite patients said they would recommend it to a friend who had single-sided deafness. Shohet Ear Associates has been approved and enrolled to participate in the current ongoing clinical study trials of SoundBite. In addition, a recent study was published in Otology & Neurotology that shows very positive outcomes for Soundbite. To learn more about this innovative new device and review the study abstract, click here.
By Joni Doherty, MD, PhD
Once again, I had the opportunity to join my colleagues on a medical mission in October as part of Global ENT Outreach. Our trip this time took us to El Salvador, where in the course of ten days we performed over 40 ear procedures on some of the country’s most needy citizens, both young and old. We also provided education on the latest surgical techniques and procedures for local physicians in the city of San Salvador in order to create a sustainable program for the future. Our team consisted of Richard Wagner, MD, an otolaryngologist who runs Global ENT Outreach (GEO), and Derald Brackman, also an ENT from the U.S. To view photos from the medical mission, click here.
Those of you who have heard about the totally implantable hearing aid called the Envoy Esteem may be interested in a scientific paper just published November 17 in the medical journal, Otology & Neurotology. The paper is co-authored by me and my colleagues who participated in the clinical trials for Esteem, Drs. Eric M. Kraus, and Peter J. Catalano. The paper is based on the results of those trials, which led to approval of the device in March 2010. I am the principal author of the paper and also presented the clinical trial results during the annual conference of the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery last year in Boston.
The paper summarizes the scientific data collected during the trials and provides details on the types of hearing loss presented by the patients we studied. It also quantifies the subsequent gain in speech reception threshold and word recognition scores (WRS). Specifically, preoperative speech reception threshold improved from an 65 dB without a hearing aid, and 48 dB average with a hearing aid, to 26 dB with the Esteem at 12 months. WRS at 50 dB scores improved from an 10% without a hearing aid, and 23% average with a hearing aid to 78% postoperatively with the Esteem.
Our conclusion is that The Esteem totally implantable middle ear hearing device provides appreciable functional gain and improvement in WRS to rehabilitate hearing in patients with a profound high-frequency sensorineural hearing loss. To view the paper in its entirety, click here.
The staff at Shohet Ear Associates takes its dedication to hearing and ear health very seriously. And because of that simple fact, our physicians and audiologists have been taking our knowledge and educational materials out in the community at a variety of venues. Starting last August, we began visiting local employers as part of the Health Expos they offer to their employees. So far, we have visited Pimco, the Huntington Beach Unified School District, Edison Energy, MDA Information Systems and Corelogic. We will also be visiting the Segerstrom Center for the Arts, and Mindspeed Technologies. At each event, we check participants’ ears for any abnormalities or infections via an otoscope and provide hearing health information. Many of these employees are enjoying get a look at their inner ears---via a monitor hooked up to the otoscope—for the very first time!
Most recently, Dr. Joni Doherty and I had the opportunity to speak on the physicians’ panel at the Hearing Health Seminar sponsored by Cochlear Americas. Over 150 people attended the event, which focused on those people with the most serious degrees of hearing impairment.
We look forward to many more events and meeting members of our local communities. If we come to your place of employment, please say “hello.” And if you would like a speaker or a visit from one of our hearing professionals at your worksite, please send us a request by filling out the “Contact Us” form on our website.
A new study suggests that men who take Viagra or similar type drugs could be at an increased risk for long-term hearing loss. The research showed that, of 11,525 men over age 40, those who took phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitors (PDE-5i) such as Viagra, Levita or Cialis, were twice as likely to report hearing loss as were men who had not used the drugs. The results are published in the May 18 issue of the journal Archives of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery.
Study author Gerald McGwin, Jr, MS, PhD, a professor of epidemiology in the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Public Health, says the study only shows an association, and not a direct cause-effect link, and more research is needed to back up the findings. The correlation was the most signficant for men reporting use of sildenafil (generic form of Viagra) over those who used tadalafil (Cialis) or vardenafil (Levitra)---probably due in part to a small sample size for both of the latter drugs. McGwin said the findings indicated an elevated but not statistically significant increase in hearing loss for users of tadalafil and vardenafil.
To read the full study, click here.
NPR’s health blog, Shots, recently posted an interesting article entitled “How Music May Help Ward Off Hearing Loss As We Age.” It recounts the results of a study conducted by Nina Kraus, director of the Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory at Northwestern University. To quote the article:
"If you spend a lot of your life interacting with sound in an active manner, then your nervous system has made lots of sound-to-meaning connection that can strengthen your auditory system,” says Dr. Kraus. Musicians focus extraordinary attention on deciphering low notes from high notes and detecting different tonal qualities. Kraus has studied younger musicians and found that their hearing is far superior to that of their non-musician counterparts. She wondered if that musical training also help fend off age-related hearing loss.
To find out, she assembled a small group of middle-aged musicians and non musicians, aged 45-65. She put both groups through a series of tests measuring their ability to make out and repeat a variety of sentences spoken in noisy background environments. Turns out, the musicians were 40 percent better than non-musicians at tuning out background noise and hearing the sentences, as Kraus reported in PloS ONE. The musicians were also better able to remember the sentences than the non-musicians — and that made it easier for them to follow a line of conversation.
To read the entire blog post, click here.
The Today Show recently aired a segment featuring Matt Lauer exploring the subject of hearing loss—with some surprising results for the reporter. He discovers that hearing loss is no longer a hallmark of old age. The segment was posted on Today’s website along with a helpful article entitled “Nine Signs That Your Hearing Loss Is A Problem.”
To view the video and read the article, click here.
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