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Importance: The development of a vestibular implant has reached milestones and seems to be a promising therapeutic tool for bilateral vestibulopathy (BV). Given the former lack of therapeutic options for BV, the disease has received scant attention in the previous research literature. It is therefore of major importance to gain more insight into the underlying pathology of BV. Furthermore, as some research groups specifically use a combined vestibulo-cochlear implant, the size of the group of BV patients with associated hearing loss is of special interest. Objectives: The study aimed to determine the definite and probable etiology in bilateral vestibulopathy (BV) patients and to report on their hearing status. Design: This study involves multicenter retrospective study design. Setting: The research setting is at tertiary referral centers. Participants: Consecutive BV patients diagnosed at the Antwerp University Hospital between 2004 and 2018 at the Maastricht University Medical Center between 2002 and 2015 and at the Geneva University Hospital between 2013 and 2018, who met the BV diagnostic criteria of the Bárány Society. Main outcome measures: Primary interests were the etiology and hearing status of BV patients. Moreover, the data of vestibular tests were examined (caloric irrigation, rotatory chair tests, and video-head impulse test). Results: The authors identified 315 BV patients, of whom 56% were male patients. Mean age at diagnosis was 58.6 ± 15.1 (range 7-91) years. The definite cause was determined in 37% of the patients and the probable cause in 26% of the patients. No cause was identified in 37% of BV patients. The largest subgroup included patients with genetic etiology (31%), most frequently COCH mutation. Only 21% of patients (n = 61) had bilateral normal hearing. Almost half of the patients (45%, n = 134) had profound hearing loss in at least one ear. Conclusion: BV is a heterogeneous condition, with over a third of cases remaining idiopathic, and nearly three-quarters affected by hearing loss. COCH mutation is the most common non-idiopathic cause of BV in our population. Only 21% of our BV patients presented with bilateral normal hearing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background During leisure activities young people are often exposed to excessive noise levels resulting in an increase of noise-induced symptoms such as hearing loss, tinnitus and hyperacusis. Noiseinduced tinnitus is often perceived after loud music exposure and provides an important marker for overexposure as a temporary threshold shift that is often not experienced by the individual itself. As oxidative stress plays an important role in the pathogenesis of noiseinduced hearing loss, the use of antioxidants to prevent hearing damage has recently become the subject of research. Methods This study proposes a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover trial to assess the effects of a prophylactic combination of N-acetylcysteine (600 mg) and magnesium (200 mg) prior to leisure noise exposure in young adults. The primary outcome measure is the tinnitus loudness scored by a visual analogue scale (VAS). Secondary outcome measures are the differences in audiological measurements for the antioxidant treatments compared to placebo intake. Audiological testing comprising of pure tone audiometry including frequencies up to 16 kHz, distortion product otoacoustic emissions, transient-evoked otoacoustic emissions and speech-in-noise testing will be performed prior to and within 7 hours after noise exposure. By use of a mixed effects statistical model, the effects of antioxidants compared to placebo intake will be assessed. Discussion As adolescents and young adults often do not use hearing protection while being exposed to loud music, the use of preventive antioxidant intake may provide a useful and harmless way to prevent noise-induced hearing damage in this population. Furthermore, when exposed to hazardous noise levels the protection provided by hearing protectors might not be sufficient to prevent hearing damage and antioxidants may provide additive otoprotective effects. Previous research mainly focused on occupational noise exposure. The present study provides a protocol to assess the usefulness of antioxidants during leisure noise activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the hypotheses on the etiology of non-pulsatile tinnitus in normal or hearing impaired patients is the existence of sharp edged cochlear dead regions (DR) flanking normal functioning hair cells. The lack of inhibition of DR on the neighboring neurons may lead to hyperactivity. Currently the Threshold Equalizing Noise test (TEN test) is the reference test to clinically assess cochlear DR. To identify cochlear DR in patients with non-pulsatile tinnitus with and without hearing loss using the TEN (sound pressure level)-test. Data were obtained from adult patients with non-pulsatile tinnitus visiting the Tinnitus Clinic of the University Hospital Antwerp. The TEN (SPL)-test was performed to assess the presence of cochlear DR for test frequencies ranging from 0.5 to 8 kHz. A total of 55 ears of 33 subjects (15 male; 18 female) with non-pulsatile tinnitus were included in the study. Subjects were divided into subgroups based on the audiometric configuration of hearing loss: Flat configuration (N = 23), high-frequency gently sloping (N = 10) and high-frequency steeply sloping (N = 22). In forty-eight ears there was no evidence of cochlear DR. In seven ears the results were inconclusive. This occurred in patients with high-frequency steeply sloping audiogram configurations. The present study does not support the TEN (SPL) test as a reliable tool for the detection of cochlear DR in a tinnitus population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Clinical and audiological examination was done in 2 Belgian families with autosomal dominant sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) linked to DFNA22. Nineteen subjects in family 1 had mild to moderate SNHL starting in the third decade. The hearing loss was characterized by a flat audiogram affecting all tested frequencies with statistically significant progression. In family 2 eleven subjects were affected with mild to moderate SNHL starting in the second decade. Most of them showed a flat audiogram, but some had mid-frequency hearing loss. Significant progression of thresholds was present at 4 and 8 kHz. For all hitherto known DFNA22 families the audiological and clinical characteristics were correlated with the molecular data. This study describes the phenotype of 2 Belgian families with SNHL linked to DFNA22, both with a pathogenic change in the deafness gene MYO6. The phenotypes of all hitherto reported DFNA22 families with mutations in the MYO6 gene have been studied and compared. It seems that genetic defects that spare the motor domain of the myosin VI protein have a milder phenotype. Copyright © 2009 S. Karger AG, Basel [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the incapacitating unilateral tinnitus in single-sided deafness which was treated by cochlear implantation. It discusses that tinnitus is a well-known, hard-to-treat symptom of hearing loss. It discusses that the users of cochlear implants (CIs) have described a reduction in tinnitus following implantation for bilateral severe-to-profound deafness.

In this study 27 future professional voice users (i.e., radio students) and 53 professional voice users (i.e., radio professionals) were questioned on their vocal hygiene. Both groups differed clearly in age and in radio experience. The mean age of the radio students was 22 years, whereas the mean age of the radio professionals was 41 years; radio students had no radio experience and radio professionals' experience ranged from 2 to 32 years. This study shows that the vocal hygiene of radio professionals is not superior to the vocal hygiene of radio students. On the contrary, every group has a distinctive vocal hygiene profile. The intake of coffee was significantly higher in radio professionals ( p <0.001) and they indicated significantly more vocal fatigue ( p =0.028). The radio students, on the other hand, experienced more acid reflux problems ( p <0.001) and signalled significantly more hoarseness ( p =0.012). Next to this, both groups smoked more than one could expect from (future) professional voice users (radio students: 33%; radio professionals: 28%). This study demonstrates the necessity of an adapted vocal hygiene education programme for both future and professional voice users, as they seem to underestimate the negative implications of bad vocal hygiene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the current systematic review is to examine the efficacy of eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy as treatment for chronic subjective tinnitus. Insights concerning the EMDR treatment method and the mechanisms could offer valuable therapeutic guidelines in tinnitus manage- ment. The systematic review was performed according to the PRISMA guidelines. PubMed (MEDLINE), the Cochrane Library, PSYNDEX, PsycINFO, and the Francine Shapiro Library were used as data sources. Included were studies with at least two patients with diagnosed chronic subjective tinnitus, with pre- and post-measurements, testing the effect of EMDR. Two experimental studies with a total of 49 tinnitus patients met the inclusion criteria. Both studies assessed tinnitus distress. The pre--post treatment effect size of the studies was calculated in one study (a medium between-effect size of Cohen's dz = .72). The other eligible study described significant improvement in 64.3% of the participants. No adverse events or side effects were reported. Research on the application of EMDR as treatment for tinnitus is still in an early stage. Both studies present EMDR as effective treatment for tinnitus distress, at least for about 50% of the patients, and that the effect remains at 3 months' follow-up. Recommendations for future research are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: The study aims to give an overview on the relationship between the auditory late latency responses in adults with a cochlear implant (CI) and auditory performances. Material and methods: The overview relies on an extensive literature investigation, including the following topics: set up, recording and interpretation of event-related potentials (ERPs) in CI users and the relationship between the ERPs and the auditory performances. Results: Cortical reorganization appears when hearing is partly restored by cochlear implantation. Auditory ERPs provide insight into the correlation between the amount of cortical reorganization and CI users' performances. Conclusions: Final conclusions will be presented at IEAR-ASG 2017. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[This corrects the article on p. 210 in vol. 11, PMID: 28572760.].