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An AI May Soon Help Triage Your Hearing Loss and Tinnitus

A new study at the Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust will test an artificial intelligence (AI) system designed to replicate a clinician’s decision-making for hearing loss and tinnitus. The goal is to see if AI can reliably sort patients, directing straightforward cases to discharge or routine care while identifying those who need urgent specialist attention.

The Scale of the Problem Drives the Search for a Solution

In the UK, hearing loss affects about 11 million people and tinnitus impacts around 7 million. These conditions are not just about sound; they are strongly associated with reduced quality of life, poorer mental health, and employment difficulties. Tinnitus alone generates more than one million general practitioner appointments annually.

Patients referred to hospital-based ear, nose, and throat (ENT) services often face severe bottlenecks. Delays for a first assessment can stretch beyond a year, a situation worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic. This access crisis creates a pressing need for new methods to manage patient flow effectively.

Building on a Virtual Clinic Success

The foundation for this AI trial is an existing virtual ENT clinic at the Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust. In this model, patients with hearing loss or non-pulsatile tinnitus take a validated hearing test in person and complete detailed online questionnaires. An ENT clinician then reviews the data to decide the next step, which could be discharge with advice, referral for scans, or scheduling a face-to-face appointment.

Initial results showed most patients could be managed successfully through this virtual pathway, significantly cutting waiting times. However, the model has a key limitation: a clinician must still personally review every single case. This consumes substantial time that could be spent on patients with more complex needs. The new study asks if an AI can perform this initial triage step reliably.

How the AI Clinical Trial Will Work

This is an observational study, meaning no new treatment is being tested. Instead, researchers will compare decisions. The AI system will be trained using “explainable AI” methods, designed to provide clear reasoning for its outputs, not just a black-box recommendation.

For each of the 1,500 planned participants, the AI will analyze the patient’s hearing test data and questionnaire responses. It will then generate a recommended management pathway. Separately, a clinician will review the same data and make their standard decision, blinded to the AI’s suggestion. The core analysis will measure the concordance rate—how often the AI’s recommendation matches the clinician’s, which is considered the gold standard.

Who Can Participate in the Study?

Participation is limited to patients already being assessed through the Royal Cornwall Trust’s virtual hearing loss and tinnitus clinic. The main inclusion criteria are having symptoms of hearing loss and/or tinnitus and being able to provide informed consent.

The study will exclude individuals under 18, those unable to consent, patients without sufficient English proficiency where translation cannot be arranged, and cases where the data quality is too poor for analysis.

The Potential Impact on Patient Care

This trial is currently listed as NOT_YET_RECRUITING on ClinicalTrials.gov. If successful, its impact could be substantial. An AI tool that achieves high concordance with clinicians could be integrated as a clinical recommendation assistant.

In practice, this could streamline the triage process. Clear-cut cases could be managed more quickly based on the AI’s validated output, with a clinician providing final sign-off. This would allow ENT specialists to focus their expertise on complex diagnoses, atypical symptoms, and patients who definitely need in-person care. The result would be a more efficient system: reduced waiting times for the many, and more dedicated time for the few with complicated needs.

The study represents a pragmatic step in hearing health. It does not seek to replace clinicians but to use AI to handle the high-volume, routine assessment work that currently creates a bottleneck. The ultimate aim is to accelerate access to appropriate care for millions living with hearing loss and tinnitus.

This article is for informational purposes only. Consult a qualified professional for personalised advice.

Source:
AI-assisted Diagnosis, Triage and Assessment of Hearing Loss and Tinnitus (ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT07586098)