LAUSR

temporoparietal cortex for rTMS study protocols as a promising site for treating chronic tinnitus. Our hypothesis for targeting this particular brain area follows previous neuroimaging findings which indicate activation of the temporoparietal cortex specifically during tinnitus perception [4, 5]. We evaluated the pooled effect size of rTMS over the left temporoparietal cortex for treating tinnitus regarding all data up-to-date available. Our efforts relied on methodological principles recommended by the Cochrane group for running a systematic review and meta-analysis [6]. All analyses were performed using the statistical packages for meta-analysis of Stata 12 for Mac OSX. The Hedges’ g was used as the measure of effect size, which is appropriate for studies of small sample sizes. The pooled effect size was weighted by the inverse variance method and measured using the random-effects model. Heterogeneity was evaluated with the I2 and the χ2 test. Publication bias was evaluated using Egger’s regression intercept test and the funnel plot, which displays confidence interval boundaries to assist in visualizing whether the studies are within the funnel, thus providing an estimate of publication bias. Sensitivity analysis, which assesses the impact of each study in the overall results by excluding one study at a time, was also performed. Our systematic review initially yielded twenty-nine studies assessing rTMS for chronic tinnitus, we then excluded all studies which did not adopt the left temporoparietal cortex as stimulation site. A total of five studies fulfilled eligibility criteria and were included in final analysis [1, 7–10] (n = 200). Four studies assessed tinnitus amelioration with Tinnitus Handicap Inventory (THI) studies and one study used Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) to verify the same outcome. rTMS frequency adopted varied from 1 up to 25 Hz. Data were analyzed based on subgroup frequency analysis, i.e., studies assessing different frequencies were Dear Editor,