Abstract
Ramelteon is a melatonin receptor agonist. Melatonin, a neurohormone secreted by the pineal gland at night, helps regulate the sleep-wake cycle, although tinnitus disturbs sleep. To evaluate ramelteon in treating subjective tinnitus, we administered it internally to 42 subjects not sufficient effectively aided by usual internal treatment. Subjects took 8.0 mg of ramelteon, nightly for 2 weeks or more. We evaluated results, using a visual analog scale (VAS) of the standardized, 1993 Tinnitus Study Group tinnitus test, the tinnitus handicap inventory (THI) for 25 subjects and symptom changes in all 42 subjects. Of the 42 (88.1%), 37 could take ramelteon. Of these 37 (64.9%), 24 improved subjectively, after taking ramelteon.
In 7 subjects with Meniere’s disease (MD), 6 improved, possibly from MD melatonin deficiency12). Mean VAS and THI decreased significantly between weeks 0 and 4-16 in Wilcoxon’s signed rank test, after taking ramelteon.
Ramelteon thus appears to be useful in treating subjective tinnitus, and subjects with MD are most likely to benefit from ramelteon treatment.
