Özet:

Objective: Tinnitus is sometimes the first manifestation of atherosclerosis. The ankle-brachial index is reported to be a good marker of atherosclerosis and is indicative of peripheral arterial damage. Material and Methods: It is a non-invasive test that can be easily applied in the outpatient clinic. We investigated the association of peripheral arterial disease in patients with nonpulsatile tinnitus using the ankle-brachial index. This study demonstrates the role of atherosclerosis in these patients. We evaluated 25 patients who had no hearing loss with nonpulsatile tinnitus and a control group of 15 patients who did not have any tinnitus symptoms. The mean age of all of the patients was 36±12 years. All patients underwent clinical evaluations including a thorough medical and otologic history, micro-otoscopy, complete blood count, clinical biochemical analysis, and pure tone and speech audiometry. Further investigations included magnetic resonance imaging of the internal acoustic canal, and Doppler ultrasound of the carotid and vertebral arteries. Results: Patients with an ankle-brachial index <0.9 were accepted as having peripheral arterial occlusive disease. The Mann-Whitney U test showed that the ankle-brachial index was significantly lower in patients with tinnitus (p=0.02). Conclusion: This study shows that peripheral arterial disease is more common in patients with nonpulsatile tinnitus than in controls without tinnitus. Our findings support the view that atherosclerosis plays an important role in the cause of nonpulsatile tinnitus.

Anahtar Kelimeler: