101 / 264
Descriptive statistics,
x
2
test, and two-sided
t
test with
unequal variances were performed. A
p
value
<
0.05 was
significant.
RESULTS
Six thousand four hundred fifty-three patients were
observed during the study time period. The prevalence of
migraine, tinnitus, and migraine with tinnitus is reported
in the figure. All 521 tinnitus patients were reviewed and
20.9% reported PT with a PT prevalence of 1.7% among
all patients. After excluding migraine patients with
potential objective tinnitus (n
¼
36), significantly more
migrainers reported history of any tinnitus as compared
with nonmigrainers (9.3% versus 7.0%,
p
¼
0.007). Of
those with tinnitus, the percentage reporting PT
migrainers as compared with nonmigrainers was the
same (20.2% versus 18.1%,
p
¼
0.62). The prevalence
of PT among all migrainers was 1.9%.
Of the 145 patients with migraine and tinnitus, 129
were excluded (Fig. 1). The remaining 16 were assessed
for PT improvement with migraine treatment. Average
age was 45.4 years (range, 31.8–55.2), follow-up was
351 days (64–1,366 days). Fourteen out of 16 were
white. Seven out of 16 described the PT as episodic
whereas 4 reported constant PT. Eleven of the 16 patients
reported improvement in PT with migraine treatment.
There were no differences in demographics, sensorineu-
ral hearing loss, quality, or laterality of tinnitus between
those who improved and those who did not.
All patients were recommended the diet. In addition to
diet, seven patients were prescribed antimigraine medi-
cations. Decision to start a medication, type, and dosing
varied by patient history and side effect profile. Table 1
FIG. 1.
Flow of patients with prevalence of migraine and tinnitus.
PREVALENCE OF PULSATILE TINNITUS
Otology & Neurotology, Vol. 37, No. 3, 2016
80