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Bell’s palsy – antivirals and steroids for all?

The role of antiviral medications in the treatment of Bell’s palsy remains somewhat controversial. Antivirals alone do not appear to be helpful, whereas numerous studies have shown that corticosteroids improve the chance of a full recovery compared to placebo. What...

Is a hemithyroidectomy as effective as a total thyroidectomy for compressive symptoms?

The claim made in the title of this paper, that hemithyroidectomy is equally as successful as total thyroidectomy in alleviating compressive symptoms from goitres, is certainly intriguing. And with the inclusion of 45,539 subjects, it would at first glance seem...

Tranexamic acid and blood loss in bimaxillary surgery

This is a randomised double-blind placebo-controlled trial from Thailand to clarify the most effective dose of Tranexamic acid in reducing blood loss during a bimaxillary osteotomy. They confirmed that the dose of 10mg per kg is the most efficacious and...

Live versus e-learning – which is the most effective communication training approach for health care staff?

If staff are unable to communicate with their patients this can impact negatively on the patient’s healthcare. They may be excluded from decisions about their own care and their rights to informed consent may be violated. Conversation partner training has...

Less pain more gain: impact of prophylactic gabapentin on swallowing outcomes in head and neck cancer patients undergoing radiation treatment

Patients planned for chemoradiation to the head and neck are usually advised to expect some pain and soreness during their treatment and that pain relief will be offered as and when it is required. Uncontrolled pain and mucositis affect oral...

Prostaglandin versus leukotriene receptor-antagonists in treatment of seasonal allergic rhinitis RCT phase II

Seasonal allergic rhinitis is very common. Failure to control the disease with mono-therapy leads to dual therapy treatment with less compliance and reduced quality of life. A prostaglandin receptor antagonist (ONO-4053) showed some efficacy in controlling allergic rhinitis in animal...

Childhood speech processing in background noise

Normal childhood development of the auditory systems involves mapping sounds to meaning and the neural coding of speech. Children are often subjected to adverse listening environments such as high levels of background noise. This paper aimed to delineate the effects...

Post tonsillectomy recovery in thermal welding method compared with recovery in cold steel method

Many different methods for tonsillectomy have emerged but whether they provide an improvement over the traditional cold steel tonsillectomy is another matter. Thermal welding is a recent method of tonsillectomy in which the tissues are simultaneously coagulated and divided. In...

Online group therapy is easier but is it better?

Aphasia is a communication disability caused by stroke, brain injury or dementia. People with aphasia benefit from both the emotional and communication support that group therapy can provide, yet there can be many barriers to accessing this type of intervention,...

Prolactinomas: when to operate

Prolactinomas are the most common functional pituitary adenomas, comprising 40% of all pituitary adenomas. There are consensus guidelines and several common management pathways. This article discusses the role of surgery for these patients. Following diagnosis, the goals of treatment are...

Vestibular migraine or BPPV?

There are close similarities between benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) and vestibular migraine (VM) as both can be presented by positional nystagmus. Though BPPV remains the commonest cause of pure positional vertigo, VM can mimic this condition. This study is...