How to improve olfaction and enhance quality of life after laryngectomy

Total laryngectomy diverts airflow away from the nose and, hence, olfaction is greatly impaired. Undoubtedly, this affects quality of life in terms of loss of taste and flavour. Surgery and devices to re-establish airflow into the nose can be difficult...

Gadolinium enhanced MRI and the diagnosis of Ménière’s disease

Despite various criteria applied over the years to diagnose Ménière’s disease since the concept of endolymphatic hydrops was first observed in postmortem examinations of patients in 1938, the diagnosis still remains mainly clinical. To visualise endolymphatic hydrops in MRI imaging,...

Non-surgical and surgical management of arytenoids granuloma

Arytenoid granulomas are often a sequelae of laryngopharyngeal reflux (LPR). Unless there is suspicion of malignancy, they require a very balanced approach between conservative management and surgical intervention. The authors present a series of 62 patients with whom the primary...

Hearing preservation in CI, any predictors?

The electrically evoked compound action potential (eCAP), obtained non-invasively from cochlear implant (CI) recipients, represents a population response of the auditory nerve to electrical stimulation. The eCAP characteristics include threshold (the lower the better), growth of response (the steeper the...

How best can we manage Samter’s Triad/AERD?

The classic ‘Samter’s Triad’ of asthma, chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyposis (CRSwNP), and aspirin sensitivity is now referred to as aspirin-exacerbated respiratory disease (AERD) or non-steroidal anti-inflammatory-exacerbated respiratory disease. We often come across in our rhinology setting, patients with recalcitrant...

Disrupting assumptions: how to teach queer concepts to speech and language therapists

Policy requiring speech and language therapy courses in America to include multicultural content in their courses was only formally introduced in 1994. Yet sexual orientation was still considered a controversial topic at this time, and it was only in the...

Ethnic inequalities in hearing aid use

Recent events, including the COVID-19 pandemic, have once again highlighted health inequalities experienced by people from ethnic minority backgrounds. Our Editors’ Choice paper shows that there are inequalities in hearing aid use and includes the stark finding that ethnicity is...

Sudden sensorineural hearing loss – who will get better?

Idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss (ISSNHL) is a rare but potentially devastating condition. For patients presenting with this condition, prognosis is of paramount importance. Wu et al begin to address this issue by retrospectively studying 17 potential prognostic factors for...

Effects of diet and exercise on tinnitus

Subjective tinnitus is the perception of sound without any external stimulus. There is no consensus on the aetiology of tinnitus. Obesity is one condition that has been associated with subjective tinnitus. The authors conducted a randomised controlled trial to assess...

Is it beneficial for children to undergo bilateral cochlear implantation before 12 months old?

Universal newborn hearing screening has allowed early diagnosis and, subsequently, early intervention in hearing loss. In 2020 the Food and Drug Administration candidacy criteria for cochlear implants (CI) expanded to include profound sensorineural hearing loss (HL) in children as young...

Preoperative unaided maximum monosyllabic word recognition score as a predictor of CI outcomes

This retrospective study supports early intervention and hearing rehabilitation with hearing amplification for adults. The authors included 103 patients (128 ears), who had undergone cochlear implantation over a seven-year period, in this study. All patients had been assessed for their...

Can ‘cone beam CT scan’ (CBCT) facilitate one-stop rhinology clinic?

Chronic rhinusinusitis can be diagnosed on the basis of its classical symptoms such as nasal obstruction, facial pains, postnasal drip and hyposmia, supported by endoscopic findings such as oedema of middle meatus, mucopus and polyps. However, CT scan findings are...