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The stubborn polyp cases are ‘different’

The widely different behaviour of nasal polyp disease between patients is a major feature of rhinology practice and makes counselling of patients difficult when approaching their first operative intervention. Setting aside aspirin sensitivity (Samter’s triad), which is known to be...

ENT emergencies

This Belgian paper reports the epidemiology of 1296 patients attending the emergency department with ENT problems over a five-year period. As expected the most common presentation was epistaxis, but interestingly vertigo seemed to be the second most common presentation to...

Preoperative tumour embolisation

This review article analyses the role of preoperative endovascular tumour embolisation in the treatment of a variety of hypervascular head and neck lesions including juvenile nasal angiofibroma, glomus tumour, carotid body tumours, and meningioma. Although the concept of tumour embolisation...

A new septoplasty technique

This article describes a novel septoplasty technique to correct a cartilaginous deflection. Although it took a while to understand it as the operative photographs were not very helpful it is an interesting concept. The author excises an inferior strip and...

Risk factors for post tonsillectomy bleeds

This paper reviews post-tonsillectomy bleeding in 692 patients and attempts to tease out risk factors. The overall bleed rate of 11.6% seems very high. The return to theatre rate was 2.6%. The paper identifies male patients and adult patients as...

A conservative approach to treat ameloblastoma

Ameloblastoma is an odontogenic tumour that is benign but locally aggressive and is associated with local recurrence. They are rare, accounting for 1% of oral tumours, and occur almost exclusively in the jaws. It is more common in the mandible...

Reconstruction after parotid surgery

This is a retrospective study from Naples, Italy. The authors compare patients with benign parotid disease that were reconstructed with three different techniques. In total 224 patients between February 2002 and March 2009 were included; these patients had either formal...

Chronic rhinosinusitis, are we treating the same disease?

Chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) is a heterogenic disease. The effects of heterogeneity on treatment outcome are not very clear. Authors used clinical features such as endoscopic findings scores and full blood count findings in addition to analysis of 35 molecular markers....

Techniques in Facial Plastic Surgery: Discussion and Debate part 2

This edition of this popular journal is dedicated to ‘panel discussion’ on some of the most common controversies associated with ‘bread and butter’ facial aesthetic procedures. The procedures included are relevant and the aspects discussed are of practical importance to...

Cycle helmets protective against facial injuries?

This is a meta-analysis completed by a maxillofacial unit on the South Coast of England. Nine studies from an initial literature review of 102 were included in the analysis. Cycling has been reported as the cause of 3-20% of facial...

Balloons – more complicated than first thought?

This study describes the complications seen after balloon sinuplasty (BSP) - a commonly performed procedure (particularly in the USA where it is often performed as an office procedure) versus traditional functional endoscopic sinus surgery (FESS). The data source was a...

Do you know what aphasia is?

In 2001 a survey was conducted in a number of towns across the world, including Exeter in the UK, to identify the level of awareness and knowledge of aphasia in the community. Aphasia is difficulty in producing or understanding language...