Clinical trial NCT01176734: The Treatment of Tinnitus With Transcutaneous Non-invasive Vagus Nerve Stimulation
Official title: The Treatment of Tinnitus With Transcutaneous Non-invasive Vagus Nerve stimulation-a Controlled Randomized Pilot Study Assessing Safety, Compatibility and Clinical Performance
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Tinnitus
Keywords: Pulsatile Tinnitus
Ringing-Buzzing-Tinnitus
Spontaneous Oto-Acoustic Emission Tinnitus
Tensor Palatini Induced Tinnitus
Tensor Tympani Induced Tinnitus
Tinnitus of Vascular Origin
Tinnitus, Clicking
Tinnitus, Leudet
Tinnitus, Leudet's
Tinnitus, Noise Induced
Tinnitus, Objective
Tinnitus, Spontaneous Oto-Acoustic Emission
Tinnitus, Subjective
Tinnitus, Tensor Palatini Induced
Tinnitus, Tensor Tympani Induced
Vascular Origin Tinnitus
Lead sponsor: cerbomed GmbH
Sponsor class: INDUSTRY
First posted: 2010-08-06
Enrollment: 50
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Maximum age (years): 75
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: no
Allocation: NON_RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: SINGLE_GROUP
Primary purpose: TREATMENT

Brief summary: The t-VNS STv3 device is a non-invasive, transcutaneous neurostimulator for influencing the afferent branches of the nervus vagus around the human ear. The clinical trial is designed as a a pilot study addressing the treatment of tinnitus with transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation.


Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Chronic tinnitus defined as a tinnitus over more than six months
* ≥31 points in the tinnitus questionnaire according to Goebel and Hiller
* Written informed consent
* Both gender, aged from 18 -75 years
* If the subject takes psychoactive medication (e.g antidepressants, anticonvulsives) therapy must be stable for at least 10 days. If a treatment with neuroleptics is necessary, only olanzapine and quetiapine should be used. The therapy should be constantly though a necessary change in medication is no reason for exclusion of the subject.

Exclusion Criteria:

* Objective tinnitus
* Participating in other tinnitus treatments within 3 months before study start
* Missing informed consent
* Pregnancy
* Bronchial asthma in medical history
* Clinically relevant internistic, neurological or psychiatric diseases
* Abuse of drugs or alcohol until 12 weeks before enrollment in the study
* Indications of structural impairment of the basal ganglia or the brain stem
* Active implants (e.g. cochlea implants, VNS, pacemaker)
* Constant all-day use of hearing instruments or noisers on the left the part-time use in special situations (e.g. watching TV is no exclusion criteria
* All dermatologic and infectious diseases which affect the area around the pinna and the ear canal
* Severe malformation of the pinna
* Other circumstances that in the opinion of the investigator might be an obstacle for enrolling the subject

Primary outcomes:
measure: Safety, feasibility and effectiveness of t-VNS® stimulation
timeFrame: 24 weeks
Secondary outcomes:
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Regensburg
country: Germany
facility: Klinik für Psychiatrie und Psychotherapie Bezirksklinikum Regensburg Universitätsstr. 84 93053 Regensburg E-mail: Berthold.Langguth@medbo.de Tel.: 0941 941 2099 Fax.: 0941 941 2025 Dr. med Michael Landgrebe, Klinik für Psychiatrie und Psychotherapie Bezir
state: Bavaria
Study officials:
affiliation: University of Regensburg
name: Berthold Langguth, MD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References:
citation: Kreuzer PM, Landgrebe M, Resch M, Husser O, Schecklmann M, Geisreiter F, Poeppl TB, Prasser SJ, Hajak G, Rupprecht R, Langguth B. Feasibility, safety and efficacy of transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation in chronic tinnitus: an open pilot study. Brain Stimul. 2014 Sep-Oct;7(5):740-7. doi: 10.1016/j.brs.2014.05.003. Epub 2014 Jun 4.