Journal Reviews
Prophylactic gastrostomy tubes in advance of chemoradiotherapy for advanced head and neck malignancies – are they worthwhile?
It is well recognised that radical chemoradiotherapy (CRT) for head and neck cancers can significantly affect swallowing, especially if radiotherapy is delivered to the hypopharynx and/or both sides of the neck. As such, prophylactic gastrostomy tubes are often advocated in...
Steroid use in acute acoustic trauma
Acute acoustic trauma (AAT) injuries include noise-induced damage to inner and middle ear presenting as hearing loss, tinnitus and vertigo. Classic presentation is sensorineural hearing loss with an intact tympanic membrane. The authors carried out a case-control study in military...
Inpatient or outpatient thyroidectomy?
This systematic review and meta-analysis discusses the safety of hemithyroidectomy in an outpatient vis-à-vis an inpatient setting. Thyroidectomy has traditionally been performed as an inpatient procedure. Currently, an increasing number of surgeons are performing thyroidectomy in outpatient settings. The main...
Hearing outcomes after mastoid obliteration tympanoplasty
In this study, the authors retrospectively compare hearing outcomes after mastoid obliteration to non-obliterative techniques in cholesteatoma surgery. They have performed canal wall up with mastoid obliteration (bony obliteration tympanoplasty or BOT) since 2013. The procedure has replaced canal wall...
Role of maxillary sinus irrigation as an adjuvant to current management of chronic rhinusitis without polyposis
Several decades have passed since irrigation of maxillary sinuses generally became a treatment of the past. A more recent concept of biofilms may have evoked new interest in this past procedure, fraught with its own issues. In this study, the...
Biologics for deafness
Cochlear implants and hearing aids are inherently limited in their ability to restore ‘natural’ hearing. Biological therapy to treat inner ear pathology still is evolving rapidly with several ongoing clinical trials, though none are available for clinical practice to date....
Eosinophilic or not eosinophilic: dupilumab seems to work
Chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyps (CRSwNP) is a type 2 inflammation with interleukin (IL)-4, IL-13, and IL-5. Tissue eosinophilia in nasal polyps dramatically increased over a 10-20-year period. Classification of the severity of eosinophil status is expected to lead to...
Dysphagia in people with HPV-related oropharyngeal cancer
Human papilloma virus (HPV) associated oropharyngeal cancers are becoming much more prevalent and, in some geographic areas, have overtaken tobacco as the leading cause of oropharyngeal cancer. HPV-associated cancers are also reported to have better prognosis in general, and research...
Balloon Eustachian tuboplasty – is it time to start doing it in children?
Given the potential applications for balloon Eustachian tuboplasty (BET) in children, its uptake in most centres has been slow. The reasons for this are multifactorial. There are technical issues – the feasibility of obtaining the correct size balloon and manoeuvring...
Gastrostomy tube dependence following TORS
Transoral robotic surgery (TORS) for oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (OPSCC) is now a well-established treatment modality for early (T1-T2) disease. Accumulating evidence suggests that one of its main benefits relative to conventional chemoradiotherapy is superior long-term functional outcome, especially with...
Predicting the nature of swallowing deficits caused by surgical resection of the tongue?
Patients treated surgically for cancer of the tongue are expected to have difficulty in eating, drinking and swallowing. The authors of this paper report on a cohort of 106 patients in their practice who had surgical resection as primary treatment....
Implications of tonsillectomy in very young children
This is a comprehensive study comprising 157 children who underwent tonsillectomy below the age of two years, mainly for sleep-disordered breathing (86.6%) and recurrent tonsillitis (7%). With relatively recent understanding of OSAS, the indications for tonsillectomy in children under two...
