The International Tinnitus Journal

Abstracts of the Twenty-Fifth Ordinary Scientific Congress of the Neurootological and Equilibriometric Society

Since the 1970s, clinical interests in otolaryngology and audiology for the symptom of tinnitus for both its diagnosis and treatment have witnessed the evolution of a new discipline- tinnitology. Tinnitology is an integrated discipline of basic sciences, neuroscience, and clinical medicine for the understanding of aberrant auditory phenomena unrelated to an external source of sound. Nuclear medicine techniques of positron emission tomography and single-photon emission computed tomography provide to patients with subjective idiopathic tinnitus (1) correlation of structure and function, which improves the accuracy of the tinnitus diagnosis; (2) a monitoring system for determining the efficacy of modalities of therapy attempting tinnitus relief; and (3) information about neuroreceptors and neurochemistry in brain involved in underlying or accompanying basic mechanisms of tinnitus production for specific clinical types and subtypes of tinnitus. Case reports will demonstrate the development and application of clinical neuropharmacology protocols for tinnitus treatment, highlighted by neuroprotective drug therapy to control tinnitogen~sis, an auditory epileptiform phenomenon.