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All videoswallows are not performed equally…
Videofluoroscopy is one of the main instrumental tools used to assess swallowing biomechanics and physiology. In the UK, it is mainly within the remit of speech and language therapists (SLT) to perform videoswallows but there is considerable variability in both...
Systemic steroids for sensorineural hearing loss
This Japanese retrospective study looked at whether the dosage of prednisolone affects the response rate in patients with idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss. The authors included a total of 159 patients over a 14-year period who were treated with 200mg/day...Kingdon Review of Children’s Hearing Services
The Department of Health and Social Care has published the ‘Kingdon Review of Children’s Hearing Services: Final Report’, led by Dr Camilla Kingdon, President of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health.
The Laryngectomee Guide
As a Macmillan Head and Neck Specialist Nurse, I was very pleased to be asked to review this book, The Laryngectomee Guide, by Itzhak Brook, MD. It is fair to say that for most laryngectomy patients, life does go on...
Which technique is better for turbinate reduction: surgical turbinoplasty or radiofrequency ablation?
Turbinate hypertrophy; radiofrequency; surgical turbinoplasty; visual analogue score
Smaller gauge voice prosthesis is effective in secondary trans-oesophageal puncture
Placement of voice prosthesis at the time of trachea-oesophageal puncture is well described using 20-French prostheses. There is debate about the optimal size of the prosthesis with work in the 1980s and 1990s supporting larger prostheses. The rationale was that...
Chemo-radiation in elderly patients with head and neck cancers
Chemo-radiotherapy is the standard of care for organ preservation in stage three and four oropharyngeal cancer, prospective data on patients over 65 has not been available as they are usually excluded from randomised trials. This paper reviews the experience of...
Anterior skull-base surgery: current opinion
This review examines the changes in the field of anterior skull-base surgery and the rapid advancement that has taken place in the last 10–15 years. Tumours of the anterior skull base that were once considered inoperable are now routinely resected...
CT and intraoperative nerve monitoring to identify non-recurrent laryngeal nerve during thyroid surgery
A non-recurrent laryngeal nerve (NRLN) is a rare (incidence 0.3% to 1.3%) anatomical variant that results in a higher rate of vocal cord palsy following thyroid surgery. This team from China examined the utility of preoperative CT and intraoperative nerve...
Vascularised tissue in salvage total laryngectomy
Chemoradiation (CRT) has become the mainstay for locally advanced laryngeal cancer since the RTOG 91-11 trial. Unfortunately there is still a substantial demand for salvage laryngectomies, which have a higher complication rate, the most notable being pharyngocutaneous fistula (PCF). Several...
X-ray vs. intraoperative testing for determining cochlear implant placement
Most cochlear implant centres confirm electrode position after surgery using X-rays to ensure optimal electrode placement. As well as transorbital view X-rays, this team check placement using impedance measures and neural response telemetry (NRT) performed intraoperatively. The former indicates whether...
