Journal Reviews archive for 2024
The push towards scarless parotid surgery
When dealing with benign parotid pathology, high expectations are placed on the operating surgeon to preserve key neurovascular structures, especially the animating facial nerve, through meticulous dissection. With time, there has been a greater emphasis on improving cosmesis in parotid...
Mondini dysplasia and cochlear implantation
Approximately 20-28% of sensorineural hearing loss in children arises due to a cochlear malformation. Mondini dysplasia includes a cochlear with one and a half turns and an incomplete interscalar septum. Cochlear implantation is a common treatment protocol for children with...
Pre-habilitation in head and neck cancer – a literature review to guide best practice
Curative treatment of head and neck cancer (HNC) often requires surgery; however, outcomes are impacted by the complexity of the surgery and the patient population. Increasingly ‘Enhanced Recovery After Surgery’ (ERAS) protocols are being used to maximise patient outcomes and...
Parkinson’s humour: recognising social communication difficulties
Parkinson’s results in a progressive motor disease with symptoms including tremor, rigidity and bradykinesia. However, people with Parkinson’s also experience non-motor symptoms such as cognitive difficulties that can impact social communication, often due to their co-existing speech difficulties, auditory and...
Nasal septoplasty: is it more effective than medical management?
Question1. How do we know that undertaking an operation will benefit a patient? Question 2. How do policy makers / health systems know an operation is effective and ‘good value for money’? As trained professionals, we spend our careers seeking...
Active surveillance for papillary thyroid cancers – what is the risk of progression?
Papillary thyroid cancers (PTCs) are generally considered to be indolent malignancies with favourable outcomes. Active surveillance (AS) has consequently been trialled as a management option for small PTCs with no evidence of regional lymph node involvement, especially papillary thyroid microcarcinomas...
A new treatment for smell loss?
It has been well established that smell training can be effective in the recovery of smell function post Covid-19 infection, and many other treatment modalities have been assessed. There have been limited studies to date evaluating the effects of dietary...
Is Gamma Knife Surgery effective for intracanalicular vestibular schwannomas?
Vestibular schwannomas (VSs) are rare, occurring in approximately five per 100,000 adults a year. In circa 8% of cases, the VS is contained within the internal auditory canal, i.e. intracanalicular (iVS). Although radiosurgery is a recognised treatment modality for VSs,...
Dizziness questionnaire and telemedicine during Covid pandemic
During the initial phases of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, delivery of ENT care adapted significantly. Kaleva et al present their findings of telephone balance consultations during the pandemic with a randomised prospective study utilising a dizziness questionnaire in West...
Factors associated with laryngopharyngeal reflux
This Chinese cross-sectional survey across three hospitals and 320 patients looked at the effect of unhealthy lifestyles and eating habits, as well as psychological difficulties, on the development of laryngopharyngeal reflux (LPR). All the participants underwent gastroscopy, laryngoscopy and various...
The decision-making process by parents of children with residual hearing who receive cochlear implants
It can be a difficult decision for parents whose children have residual hearing whether or not to undergo cochlear implantation. Their children may seem to be hearing with their hearing aids, and even in some cases can hear without aids....
How common is self-reported dysphagia in the general population?
Healthcare policymakers and commissioners of services often review incidence and prevalence data when deciding on resource allocation. The authors of this paper have capitalised on a large dataset, the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA), which collects data on over...
