Background and Aim: Few comprehensive epidemiological studies of the prevalence of tinnitus have been undertaken, and none has been carried out in Egypt. A community-based survey was conducted in the Assiut Governorate to estimate the prevalence of tinnitus, its associations with psychiatric disorders and its effect on the quality of life. Material and Methods: The study involved 8,484 subjects, 5,783 (68.2%) from the rural community and 2,701 (31.8%) from the urban community. Patients were identified from a door-to-door survey and evaluated using a semistructured questionnaire, the Tinnitus Handicap Inventory and the Hamilton Anxiety and Depression Scales. Results: Four hundred and thirty-nine patients with tinnitus were found, giving a prevalence of 5.17 tinnitus cases/100 inhabitants. Males and females were equally affected. The highest age-specific prevalence rate was recorded among subjects above 60 years (17.66%) and was significantly higher among urban than rural inhabitants (6.3 vs. 4.6%) and among illiterate than among educated persons (10.15 vs. 3.07%). A majority of patients (53.3%) had some hearing loss; otitis media was common. Only 15.2% of cases were classified as having severe to catastrophic tinnitus. Nearly two thirds had a degree of depression. There were significant correlations between the severity of tinnitus and the degree of hearing loss, temporomandibular joint pain and the Hamilton depression score. Sleep disturbance was reported by 39.4% of subjects. Life enjoyment was severely affected in 15% of tinnitus patients. Conclusion: Tinnitus is a common problem in our locality, especially in older adults, and is associated with some modifiable risk factors.

Nonsyndromic hearing loss is an extremely heterogeneous disorder. Thus, clinical diagnostics is challenging, in particular due to differences in the etiology of hearing loss between populations. With this study, we wanted to elucidate the genetic basis of hearing loss in 61 consanguineous Egyptian families. In 25 families, linkage analysis was used as a prescreening to identify regions for targeted sequencing of candidate genes. Initially, the coding regions of 12 and later of 94 genes associated with hearing loss were enriched and subjected to massively parallel sequencing (MPS) with diagnostic yields of 36% and 75%, respectively. Causative variants were identified in 48 families (79%). They were found in 23 different genes with the majority being located in MYO15A (15.3%), SLC26A4 (9.7%), GJB2 (8.3%), and MYO7A (6.4%). As many as 32 variants were novel ones at the time of detection. Five variants were shared by two, three, or even four families. Our study provides a first survey of the mutational spectrum of deaf patients in Egypt revealing less GJB2 variants than in many European populations. It underlines the value of targeted enrichment of well‐selected deafness genes in combination with MPS in the diagnostics of this frequent and genetically heterogeneous disorder.

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