The Tinnitus Retraining Therapy Trial (TRTT): study protocol for a randomized controlled trial

Roberta W Scherer, Craig Formby, Susan Gold, Sue Erdman, Charles Rodhe, Michele Carlson, Dave Shade, Melanie Tucker, Lee McCaffrey Sensinger, Gordon Hughes, George S Conley, Naomi Downey, Cynthia Eades, Margaret Jylkka, Ada Haber-Perez, Courtney Harper, Shoshannah Kantor Russell, Benigno Sierra-Irizarry, Mark Sullivan, Tinnitus Retraining Therapy Trial Research Group

Subjective tinnitus is the perception of sound in the absence of a corresponding external sound for which there is no known medical etiology. For a minority of individuals with tinnitus, the condition impacts their ability to lead a normal lifestyle and is severely debilitating. There is no known cure for tinnitus, so current therapy focuses on reducing the effect of tinnitus on the patient's quality of life. Tinnitus retraining therapy (TRT) uses nonpsychiatric tinnitus-specific educational counseling and sound therapy in a habituation-based protocol to reduce the patient's tinnitus-evoked negative reaction to, and awareness of, the tinnitus, with the ultimate goal of reducing the tinnitus impact on the patient's quality of life. Some studies support the efficacy of TRT, but no trial to date has compared TRT with the current standard of care or evaluated the separate contributions of TRT counseling and sound therapy. The Tinnitus Retraining Therapy Trial (TRTT) is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multicenter trial for individuals with intolerable tinnitus.