Irish general practitioners, audiologists and patients will soon have access to a new treatment option for chronic subjective tinnitus patients, in the form of ‘mutebutton’. A new non-surgical treatment from Irish medical devices company Neuromod Devices Ltd, the mutebutton treatment has secured a medical device CE Mark and will shortly be released. The mutebutton system has been shown to gradually reduce the illusory sounds of tinnitus in independent clinic studies conducted by NUI Maynooth and the Hermitage Medical Centre in Lucan, Co Dublin. Over the course of 10 weeks of treatment, the participants’ mean minimum masking levels were reduced by 8.6dB (42% decrease in masking amplitude).
Tinnitus affects 10% of the population, according to the British Tinnitus Association. At present, there are limited avenues of treatment for subjective tinnitus.
Once the product has launched, patients will be able to purchase the device through the website www.mutebutton.ie and attend one of the partnering clinical centres of excellence to have their mutebutton system configured to their tinnitus.