Low Power Laser Therapy for Tinnitus

Abstract

Recently, many types of the low power laser have been developed and used in the treatment of variousdiseases. An attempt to use the laser beam for pain relief instead of an acupuncture needle has beenintroduced by Plog in1973.
We have been using the low power laser (Ga-Al-As diode laser produced by Japan Morita Company) for the treatment of tinnitus. In this study, we reported the methods and results of our'treatment. SinceApril 1991 until June 1992, 37cases (44 ears) have received more than one course of the treatment. Onecourse consisted of ten times of laser irradiation. Laser beams were irradiated on three meridian points (TE 21or SI 19, TE 17 and Liv 2) once a week and a6-minute irradiation was performed on each point.A patient was asked to fill in the questionnaire in order to get a subjective evaluation of the effect for thetreatment. For objective evaluation, the pitch match and loudness balance tests were performed in 28 cases with unilateral tinnitus and contralateral normal hearing level. According to the data of thequestionnaire, the subjective effective rate was 73%. At the end of one course treatment, the pitch oftinnitus became lower in almost all cases. The pitch of tinnitus was usually modified after two or fourtimes of irradiation and became stable after six or seven times of irradiation. There was a good relationshipbetween the objective and subjective evaluation. The changes of the tinnitus pitch have a relativelygood relationship with the subjective evaluation of the treatment effect. We discussed the possibility thatthe changes of the tinnitus pitch might become one of the indices of the treatment effect.