Brought to you by AudioNotch, the leading Tinnitus Treatment program worldwide: Medical implants that offer a targeted drug delivery to the ear are a possible therapeutic model for treating tinnitus. The US department of defense is funding one such study that uses an implant to deliver a drug in a targeted manner:
To address the problem, the U.S. Department of Defense has commissioned Draper Laboratory in Cambridge, Mass., to spend the next year fleshing out a concept for a small delivery device inserted near the membrane-covered window—no more than three millimeters in diameter—separating the middle ear from the inner ear. Once at the membrane the device (essentially a polymer capsule, although Draper is not developing any of [the] medicines that might be placed inside) would release a drug into the cochlea, the tubular organ residing in the inner ear that enables us to hear. The plan is to embed wireless communications into the capsule so that a patient or doctor can control the dosage. After the capsule finishes delivering its supply of drugs, it would dissolve.