The Value of Carbamazepine in the Treatment of Tinnitus

Abstract

A double-blind controlled trial on the use of oral carbamazepine in the treatment of tinnitus is reported. The effects of carbamazepine and intravenous lidocaine on tinnitus were compared. Carbamazepine had less effect than the placebo.

Typewriter Tinnitus: A Carbamazepine-Responsive Syndrome Related to Auditory Nerve Vascular Compression

“…Our report has described a distinct tinnitus syndrome responsive to carbamazepine despite well-designed prior studies showing no benefi t of carbamazepine for tinnitus subjects [11][12][13] . The failure of the prior studies to detect this effect is probably due to its infrequent occurrence.…”

Carbamazepine reduces the behavioural manifestations of tinnitus following salicylate treatment in rats

“…It has been used to treat tinnitus in human patients despite the fact that very few systematic clinical studies have been conducted [2,3,7]. This study is the first to evaluate the efficacy of CBZ in an animal model of tinnitus based on Jastreboff et al's [8] lick-suppression model.…”

“…In both of these studies, the side effects from CBZ treatment were mild and transient [2,3]. In contrast, Hulshof and Vermeij [7] reported that CBZ was less effective than a placebo in relieving tinnitus. Despite the use of CBZ in the treatment of tinnitus, these studies represent the majority of the clinical trial data available.…”

The effects of the Chinese herbal medicine EMF01 on salicylate-induced tinnitus in rats

“…The hypothesis that tinnitus may be a form of 'sensory epilepsy' is the reason that many anti-epileptic drugs, such as carbamazepine, gabapentin and vigabatrin, are often prescribed for the disorder . Nonetheless, the clinical evidence for their efficacy in the treatment of tinnitus is limited (Melding and Goodey, 1979;Hulshof and Vermeij, 1985;Zapp, 2001;Bauer and Brozoski, 2006;Witsell et al, 2007;Bakhshaee et al, 2008) and there remains little consensus about the best drug treatment options for tinnitus.…”