PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Vitor M Pereira
AU  - Nicole Mariantonia Cancelliere
AU  - Mehdi Najafi
AU  - Dan MacDonald
AU  - Thangam Natarajan
AU  - Ivan Radovanovic
AU  - Timo Krings
AU  - John Rutka
AU  - Patrick Nicholson
AU  - David A Steinman
TI  - Torrents of torment: turbulence as a mechanism of pulsatile tinnitus secondary to venous stenosis revealed by high-fidelity computational fluid dynamics
AID  - 10.1136/neurintsurg-2020-016636
DP  - 2020 Nov 20
TA  - Journal of NeuroInterventional Surgery
PG  - neurintsurg-2020-016636
4099  - http://jnis.bmj.com/content/early/2020/11/19/neurintsurg-2020-016636.short
4100  - http://jnis.bmj.com/content/early/2020/11/19/neurintsurg-2020-016636.full
AB  - Background Pulsatile tinnitus (PT) is a debilitating condition that can be caused by a vascular abnormality, such as an arterial or venous lesion. Although treatment of PT-related venous lesions has been shown to successfully cure patients of the associated ‘tormenting’ rhythmical sound, much controversy still exists regarding their role in the etiology of PT.Methods A patient presented with a history of worsening, unilateral PT. A partial venous sinus obstruction related to the large arachnoid granulation was detected on the right side, and subsequently stented at the right transverse sinus. High-fidelity computational fluid dynamics (CFD) was performed on a 3D model digitally segmented from the pre-stent venogram, with assumed pulsatile flow rates. A post-stent CFD model was also constructed from this. Data-driven sonification was performed on the CFD velocity data, blinded to the patient’s self-reported sounds.Results The patient reported that the PT was completely resolved after stenting, and has had no recurrence of the symptoms after more than 2 years. CFD simulation revealed highly disturbed, turbulent-like flow at the sigmoid sinus close to auditory structures, producing a sonified audio signal that reproduced the subjective sonance of the patient’s PT. No turbulence or sounds were evident at the stenosis, or anywhere in the post-stent model.Conclusions For the first time, turbulence generated distal to a venous stenosis is shown to be a cause of PT. High-fidelity CFD may be useful for identifying patients with such ‘torrents’ of flow, to help guide treatment decision-making.