Related Experiment Video
Updated: Oct 4, 2025
09:23
A Low Cost Setup for Behavioral Audiometry in Rodents
Published on: October 16, 2012
12.8K
Longitudinal Study of Analgesic Use and Risk of Incident Persistent Tinnitus
Sharon G Curhan1,2, Jordan Glicksman3, Molin Wang4,5,6
1Channing Division of Network Medicine, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA. scurhan@bwh.harvard.edu.
Journal of General Internal Medicine
|February 8, 2022
Summary
Frequent use of moderate-dose aspirin in younger women and regular use of non-aspirin NSAIDs or acetaminophen are linked to a higher risk of developing persistent tinnitus. Low-dose aspirin did not show an increased risk.
Area of Science:
- Epidemiology
- Pharmacology
- Otolaryngology
Background:
- Persistent tinnitus is a prevalent and debilitating condition with limited treatment options.
- While high-dose aspirin is known to cause tinnitus, data on typical aspirin doses and other analgesics are scarce.
Purpose of the Study:
- To examine the independent associations between aspirin, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), and acetaminophen use and the risk of developing persistent tinnitus.
Main Methods:
- A longitudinal cohort study was conducted using data from the Nurses' Health Study II (1995-2017).
- The study included 69,455 women, aged 31-48 years, without prior tinnitus.
- Analgesic use and tinnitus incidence were tracked via biennial questionnaires over 1,120,936 person-years.
Main Results:
- Frequent use of moderate-dose aspirin was associated with an increased risk of tinnitus in women under 60.
- Frequent use of non-aspirin NSAIDs and acetaminophen was linked to a higher risk of incident persistent tinnitus across all women.
- No elevated risk was observed for frequent low-dose aspirin users.
Conclusions:
- Frequent use of moderate-dose aspirin (in younger women), non-aspirin NSAIDs, and acetaminophen increases the risk of developing persistent tinnitus.
- These findings suggest that common analgesics may contribute to tinnitus development, warranting further investigation into causality.
- Low-dose aspirin use did not appear to elevate tinnitus risk.
More Related Videos
Related Concept Videos
01:25Analgesia and Pain Management
891
Pain is critical to various clinical pathologies, provoking an urgent need for effective management. Pain, whether acute or chronic, is a complex neurochemical process. Its alleviation depends on the type, with nonopioid analgesics effective for mild to moderate pain, such as musculoskeletal or inflammatory pain, while neuropathic pain responds best to anticonvulsants, tricyclic antidepressants, or serotonin/norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors. For severe acute or chronic pain, opioids may be...
891
02:20Longitudinal Research
12.6K
Sometimes we want to see how people change over time, as in studies of human development and lifespan. When we test the same group of individuals repeatedly over an extended period of time, we are conducting longitudinal research. Longitudinal research is a research design in which data-gathering is administered repeatedly over an extended period of time. For example, we may survey a group of individuals about their dietary habits at age 20, retest them a decade later at age 30, and then again...
12.6K