Exploring effectiveness of non-invasive therapies for chronic tinnitus

Acoustic and cognitive behavioural therapy can effectively treat chronic tinnitus by masking tinnitus sounds, reducing auditory hypersensitivity, and improving patients' overall quality of life by alleviating psychological distress.

To investigate the efficacy of different Non-Invasive Therapies (NITs) for the management of chronic tinnitus in adults.

The PubMed, Embase and Cochrane databases were explored. Various NITs, such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Sound Therapy, Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, Electrical Stimulation Therapy, Virtual Reality, Tinnitus Retraining Therapy, psychotherapy and placebo were evaluated as per the PRISMA guidelines.

The outcome measures assessed were the Tinnitus Handicap Inventory (THI), Tinnitus Questionnaire (TQ), Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), Insomnia Severity Index (ISI), and Visual Analogue Scale (for Loudness [VAS-L] and Distress [VAS-D]). The Stata 14.0 was used to execute statistical analysis for the network meta-analysis (NMA).

This systematic review and meta-analysis incorporated 22 randomized controlled trials with a total of 2,354 patients. The effects of the treatments differed across the various scales (Table 1):

Acoustics (sound therapy) and cognitive behavioural therapy proved to be beneficial therapies for adults with chronic tinnitus.