The International Tinnitus Journal

Subdividing Tinnitus into Bruits and Endogenous, Exogenous, and Other Forms

Tinnitus is an important complaint or disease or a combination, especially within our aging population. Neurootologists clinically deal with many different disorders of the human cranial senses, of which tinnitus is a very frequent type. With respect to neurootological clinical work, we delineate at least three groups of tinnitus. In bruits, patients complain of noise within the head (e.g., bubbling, hissing, pulsating); the bruit can be recorded as a physically existing sound in the human skull and is heard by patients. Endogenous tinnitus can be treated by external masking to suppress noise within the ears, whereas in exogenous tinnitus, patients seek to avoid any outside noise or sounds; they report that tinnitus decreases as soon as they go, for instance, into the cellar of a house or other soundproof place.