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A drug to prevent hearing loss caused by ototoxic therapeutics

This editorial briefly highlights the progress made in discovering a compound named ORC-13661, which shows the potential to alter the response of hair cells to ototoxic medication. In the late 1980s, inner hair cells that were lost secondary to noise...

Robot controlled mastoid surgery!

This is a fascinating piece of work by a Korean team developing a human-robot collaborative control. Their model uses image guidance surgery to locate the drill tip’s position. Important structures can be highlighted – in this case the facial nerve....

Work and the risk and carcinoma of the larynx

This is a census on the national cancer registry in France to detect professions at a higher risk of squamous cell carcinoma of the larynx. During the period 2001-2016 there were 244 registered cases of cancer of the larynx. Amongst...

Are we now safe at work?

Fifty years is a long time, yet the years pass in a blink of an eye. Where are we in comparison to where we were then, in terms of the occupational protection from noise exposure and ototoxicity, other than being...

Management of stage IV pharyngolaryngeal lesions

This is a retrospective study of 63 patients presenting with stage four laryngeal and/or hypopharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma. The aim was to define the factors influencing the oncological and functional outcomes of the patients. All patients had T4 lesions with...

How the world sees facial palsy patients

This paper from Australia gives an insightful perspective on the impact of facial paralysis on patients, and may explain the well-documented poor quality of life scores in this patient group, particularly those ‘successfully reconstructed’ with surgery. It explores how the...

Influence of atmospheric conditions on post tonsillectomy secondary haemorrhage

Haemostasis in epistaxis and a good few other conditions outside the field of otolaryngology seem to be affected by the weather. It is generally thought that dry and hot environment encourages secondary post tonsillectomy haemorrhage. Variations in water vapour pressure,...

Postoperative pain in septoplasty

This is a prospective Turkish study that looked at factors affecting the postoperative pain response after septoplasty, a common ENT surgical procedure. Sixty patients were included in the study who underwent septoplasty. The authors looked at the influence of demographics...

The search for the holy grail of rhinosinusitis: another step towards phenotyping in CRS wNP?

For many years, scientists and clinicians have been trying to understand the infinite variability within the term ‘rhinosinusitis’ using radiology, basic science, epidemiology and then using their insights to solve the riddle of management: how to explain why some patients...

Possible correlation of ABR changes with prognosis in sudden sensorineural hearing loss

A sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) of 30dB or more affecting at least three frequencies and occurring over less than three days is classified as ‘sudden’ SNHL (SSNHL). Treatment is urgently undertaken with systemic and/or intra-tympanic steroids, and ijn some cases...

Let the maths do the talking for word-finding difficulties

Anomia (word-finding difficulties) can arise when a person has a stroke, dementia or other neurological disorder affecting the left (typically) hemisphere of the brain. There are lots of theories underlying the process of word retrieval, many of which have not...