Tinnitus among children – Our experiences in a tertiary care teaching hospital of eastern India

Objective
This study is designed to find out the etiology, clinical presentations and management of tinnitus in children.

Materials and methods
This is a retrospective study and data collected from 104 children suffering with tinnitus during 2010 to 2016. The detail history taking and investigations were done to find out the etiology. The clinical presentation and severity were included in this study. Treatment depends on the tinnitus category and severity. The treatment options included counseling, tinnitus retraining therapy, counseling with medications and surgery.

Results
Out of the 104 children, 68 were male and 36 were female with average age was 9.68 years. In 34 cases, no cause was identified and called idiopathic. The majority of tinnitus patients showed normal hearing. The origin of myoclonic tinnitus was from middle ear and palatal muscle. Seventy six patients (73.07%) presented mild tinnitus and treated with counseling alone. Twenty eight children with tinnitus needed more aggressive treatment. All the patients were followed up after 3 months of treatment and showed improvement in 92%.

Conclusion
Proper medical history and audiological examination are helpful for finding etiology and management of tinnitus among children. Little is known for effective treatment in childhood tinnitus. In the present study, the etiology of tinnitus in children is somewhat different than those of adults. Establishing the diagnosis and implementing appropriate treatment leads to relieve troublesome tinnitus among children.