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Bullet Points in ENT: Postgraduate and Exit Exam Preparation

This book adds itself to half a dozen similar publications for trainees preparing for postgraduate exams in otolaryngology. Three hundred pages of facts laid out in five sections with 105 coloured illustrations. Each section has been nicely put together covering...

New MRI technique assesses treatment response in skull base osteomyelitis

This paper describes another useful imaging technique to monitor Necrotising Otitis Externa (NOE). Echoplanar diffusion weighted magnetic resonance (DW MR) shows high signal on the ‘ADC map’ with active disease and this reduces in signal intensity as symptoms improve. This...

Diagnostic performance of non-echo-planar diffusion weighted MRI in detection of suspected cholesteatoma

Even though a ‘second look’ remains a gold standard for detection of residual cholesteatoma after intact canal wall techniques, non-echo-planar diffusion weighted MRI is considered a reasonable alternative to avoid further surgery. However, to establish or exclude a cholesteatoma de...

Using evidence and international consensus to guide treatment of thyroid nodules

The authors of this practical review paper highlight a growing issue within thyroid surgery, where high-quality ultrasound has increased the detection of subclinical nodules: what do we do with the patient presenting with an ‘incidental’ thyroid nodule? This has both...

OSA – do the parents know best?

The difficulty in using the history and examination to determine the severity of sleep disordered breathing in children is well established. The relative prevalence of sleep disordered breathing symptoms in children, and the relative paucity of capacity and restrictive cost...

Neuromodulation in drug resistant epilepsy

Treatment of epilepsy can be considered generally as medical or surgical. Anti-epileptic drugs achieve a five-year seizure freedom in 54-70% patients. It is estimated that 50-90% of patients with drug-refractory epilepsy may not be candidates for resective surgery. For example,...

Global incidence of sporadic vestibular schwannoma

The incidence rate of sporadic vestibular schwannoma (VS) has commonly been quoted as one in 100,000. However, since the advent of screening for asymmetrical hearing loss and increased availability of modern MRI scanning, more recent studies have shown the incidence...

Early recognition aiding better prognosis?

As we are all aware, acute invasive fungal rhinosinusitis (AIFR) is a life-threatening disease which typically affects immunocompromised patients. It is diagnosed via typical signs, symptoms and presentation but gold standard is by biopsy of tissues demonstrating infiltration fungal hyphae....