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Head and Neck Vascular Anomalies: A Practical Case-Based Approach
I was genuinely delighted when this book arrived for review. Usually I get something on vertigo which props up one end of the book case gathering dust. A quick skim through this instantly told me the section editor had blessed...
Transnasal endoscopic repair of CSF leaks
This Italian study was a retrospective review of 110 consecutive patients who underwent repair of their CSF leak via the transnasal endoscopic approach from 2003 to 2013. All surgery was performed by the same primary surgeon and patients with a...
To drain or not to drain
These two separate papers neatly tie together the same ideas. The first, a retrospective study of 107 patients and 116 procedures over a 10-year period who underwent a CSF leak repair, 82.2% without a lumbar drain and 17.8% with. The...
Finding the elusive parathyroid glands
While reading in the literature about new advances in knowledge and surgical techniques, it is often easy to lose track of the longstanding knowledge that we all acquired during our training. This is why this article on the anatomy and...
Marshmallows for swallowing assessments!
The complaint of ‘food sticking in my throat’ is one many of us will have heard several times in clinical practice. The authors of this study report the prevalence of this symptom to be between 5-8% in the general population...
Incidental thyroid nodules: should we observe or operate?
Thyroid nodules are extraordinarily prevalent, detected by physical examination in 7% and by imaging studies in 67% of the population. Although most of these nodules are benign, up to 20% are found to be malignant on excision. It’s a very...
Advances in surgical innovation for head and neck cancer
This article reviews current advances in surgical treatment of head and neck cancers such as sentinel node biopsy, stereolithic modelling, transoral robotic surgery and intra-operative imaging of tumour margins. Sentinel node biopsy has been found to be especially useful for...
Effectiveness of oral pressure therapy in obstructive sleep apnoea: a systematic analysis
Oral pressure therapy (OPT) is a relatively new form of therapy for obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA). Paradoxically it seems to work even though it creates a vacuum in the oral cavity as opposed to the gold standard of continuous positive...
Suspect the unsuspecting in thyroid cancer
This article reminds readers of how often invasive thyroid disease can appear, as the symptomatology is minimal. Noticeable airway symptoms appear after 50% of the airway is involved and surgeons can often fall in the unsuspecting trap of discovering locally...
Is it worth paying for group therapy?
Group therapy for post-stroke communication difficulties has been described in the research literature for more than 50 years and is generally considered an efficacious approach. Yet these authors express concern that the American Medicare system is less willing to fund...
Facial reconstruction with polyethylene implants
Planning reconstructive surgery for complex craniofacial defects challenges even the most experienced of surgeons. In most cases surgery is undertaken to improve anatomical functioning. However the anatomical structure of these regions is also critical to facial aesthetics and patient satisfaction...
