For the millions of tinnitus sufferers around the world, silence never comes.
This disease, which affects 15% of the world’s population, produces the perception of persistent ringing and other phantom sounds.
We have never known for sure what causes tinnitus, nor have we ever had a reliable biomarker or objective test to detect it.
Until now, the only way doctors could diagnose the condition was to tell them you were hearing sounds that weren’t there.
But that could change.
In a new study published in Otolaryngology – Head and neck surgeryscientists report what may be the strongest evidence yet for a biomarker candidate for tinnitus.
“We now have proof of concept that an ear protein may play a central role in the development and management of tinnitus,” says otolaryngologist Kourosh Parham of the University of Connecticut.
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In an experiment involving 82 adults – half of whom suffered from tinnitus – blood tests revealed that a protein called prestin appears to be linked to the condition.
The research, building on an earlier study by some members of the same team, found that people with tinnitus had blood levels of prestin that were about 50% higher than participants without the condition.
Prestin is a motor protein found in the membranes of the outer hair cells that line the cochlea. It helps amplify sounds and is crucial for sensitive hearing.
But previous research has linked prestin to hearing damage, raising the possibility that changes in this protein could affect the proper functioning of the inner ear, potentially contributing to the phantom sounds experienced by people with tinnitus.
Studies have shown that prestin levels are influenced by noise exposure, age, and hearing loss, and experimental models of hearing damage show that prestin levels are altered by trauma, suggesting that the protein may be a biomarker of cochlear injury.
“Now measuring prestin gives us a clinical indication of the severity of tinnitus,” says Parham.
For several years, it has been known that an overdose of aspirin can cause hearing problems by disrupting cochlear functions, and prestin is one of the proteins concerned.
We’re now getting more evidence of its association with tinnitus, but there’s still a lot we don’t know.
This was only a small observational study, and the results so far do not prove that high levels of prestin trigger tinnitus.
All we know is that they are linked to the condition in some way, but as researchers acknowledge, it’s likely that other factors could also contribute to tinnitus.
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It should also be noted that although the study showed that high levels of prestin were linked to tinnitus, a separate analysis of diagnostic accuracy suggested that the biomarker cannot yet be used reliably as a tool to diagnose tinnitus, at least based on the sample of participants studied here.
As the researchers point out, it’s possible that this was because some of the participants had a form of non-cochlear tinnitus, caused by something other than prestin abnormalities.
Future research could perhaps clarify this. For now, we have a solid idea that prestin is involved in the disease, and this is an avenue of research that could help us develop a diagnostic system for clinical settings, and perhaps even in terms of one day’s treatment of tinnitus as well.
“Our work now indicates that there is promise in using prestin as a biomarker for tinnitus,” says Parham. “This is our first step toward developing drugs to help manage tinnitus.”
The results are reported in Otolaryngology – Head and neck surgery.
This article was fact-checked by Rebecca Dyer and edited by Rebecca Dyer. Although we are proud of our process, we are only human. If you spot an error, please let us know.
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