“Does tinnitus run in your family?” Seldom is that question asked by clinicians to their
patients with tinnitus, but why would they ask? Audiologists and ear, nose, and throat
specialists see patients with tinnitus in association with either conductive or sensorineural
hearing loss, which has led to the clinical dogma that tinnitus is secondary and by definition
a symptom arising from the hearing disorder. However, tinnitus may occur in absence of any
detectable auditory dysfunction, most particularly in young individuals, which raises the …