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The changing landscape for hearing loss therapeutics: novel advances of gene and cell therapies

Recent years have seen advances in hearing loss therapeutics, with novel treatments trialled in humans, and others nearing promising first-in-kind clinical trials. First successful clinical trials for a specific form of genetic hearing loss Very exciting news has emerged in...

COVID-19 in China: the experience of an ENT team

In January, we first heard of COVID-19. As we currently do battle with it on our own shores, colleagues in China share their story with us as life there slowly and cautiously begins to return to normal and the country...

The modern management of Ménière's disease

In this article, John Phillips considers the evolution of management options for Ménière’s disease. Treatment options past and present are discussed, together with an insight into future developments regarding the role of intratympanic steroids. Ménière's disease can be the source...

Fall prevention in the elderly population

A fall in later life can have a catastrophic impact on a person’s quality of life. Lilian Felipe explains how falls prevention programmes and vestibular rehabilitation can help.

TORS for patients with sleep-disordered breathing

Transoral robotic surgery is now a well-accepted technique in malignant tumours of the tongue base. Here the team from St Mary’s and the Royal National Throat Nose & Ear Hospital in London describe its use in carefully selected patients with...

A ‘rye’ tail – the fatal illness of Lord Boringdon, a Regency tragedy

The anonymous privately-printed book, Some Account of Lord Boringdon’s Accident, describes in deferential terms a case of aspiration of a foreign body and its sequelae. Today aspirated foreign bodies are serious but curable injuries; before the invention of the bronchoscope...

The Dilemma of Beethoven’s Deafness

Beethoven was one of the world’s greatest musicians, and his deafness is well known. Many details of his medical conditions are known, and various theories of his hearing loss have been proposed. Ludwig van Beethoven was born in 1770 in...

Erasmus Darwin and the larynx – but why is it where it is and when?

Charles Darwin’s grandfather was not only on to where we all came from by the end of the 18th century, but dared to declare it in verse whilst resident in Lichfield Cathedral Close. This needed exceptional temerity, since not only...

Did you ever meet Draffin on your travels?

Draffin’s rods or bipods are a well-known ENT instrument. Before their invention in 1951, the attendant anaesthetist or nurse was obliged to support the mouthgag during tonsillectomy. Their originator, David Alexander Draffin (born in 1917 in Ballybey, Co Monaghan), was...

Advances in vestibular function testing

Vestibular function testing has historically been limited by difficulties in testing individual parts of the vestibular apparatus. Jas Sandhu describes new tests available to clinicians that address this problem. Advances in vestibular function testing Vestibular function testing has historically been...