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Round window niche drilling with intratympanic for ISSHL. A new option for salvage?

This paper from China compares the technique of widening the round window via a posterior tympanotomy approach and steroid-soaked gelatin sponge with intratympanic steroids alone for salvage therapy in severe idiopathic sensorineural hearing loss. Salvage therapy was defined as patients...

Peer-support group for people with a hearing loss

Peer-support groups’ (PSGs) involvement in rehabilitation of people with different health issues can have a very positive impact on the patients’ wellbeing as showed in a various literature on the subject. This study involves analysis of data from previous studies...

Nasal disease and quality of life in athletes

Rhinitis is a nasal condition which is generally underappreciated in primary care and even less in athletes. In this study, the authors specify nasal symptoms constituting rhinitis as nasal blockage, sneezing bouts, rhinorrhoea and itching and compare their prevalence in...

Lingual tonsils and obstrucive sleep apnoea syndrome (OSAS)

Obstructive sleep apnoea can be due to narrowing of the retrolingual space by hypertrophic lingual tonsils. The authors studied 11 patients (five males and six females with a mean age of 44.3 years and a mean BMI of 28.6). All...

Gastro-oesophageal reflux and cricopharyngeal dysfunction – how do they link?

It has been hypothesised that cricopharyngeal muscle hypertrophy develops as a response to chronic gastro-oesophageal reflux disease. The cricopharyngeus muscle is an important component and contributor to the upper oesophageal sphincter that creates a barrier between the pharynx and oesophagus....

Narrow band imaging improves diagnosis of malignant laryngeal lesions

The manufacturers of narrow band imaging (NBI) claim better visualisation of mucosal abnormalities when compared with simple white light. The primary aim of the study was to compare the diagnostic accuracy of NBI and white light to diagnose malignant laryngeal...

Is bone scanning still of value?

This is an article from Australia of 109 patients, 83 of which had CT, 72 MRI and the presence of bone invasion on imaging was compared with the histopathology. Bone invasion was present in 44 of 109 resection specimens. Bone...

Bone grafting in orthognathic surgery

In this systematic review of 48 articles the authors reviewed the complication, stability, aesthetics and healing of Le Fort I, sagittal split, chin and zygomatic osteotomies. They concluded that there was strong evidence that bone grafting promotes healing of a...

Single surgery for repair of tegmen defects and superior semicircular canal dehiscence

This retrospective review of 34 patients undergoing repair of the temporal bone defect via the middle cranial fossa approach provides the author’s management strategy for two problems: superior semicircular canal dehiscence and tegmen defects. The incidence of both these pathologies...

Paediatric versus adult pituitary adenomas

This retrospective study compares paediatric with adult patients undergoing pituitary adenoma surgery over a period of 26 years at a single institution. All surgeries were performed via a sublabial approach using the operating microscope. An endoscope was used occasionally for...

Nasal dermoids

This article goes through the fairly specific and unique condition of paediatric midline nasal dermoids. It goes through the epidemiology and then the embryology, reminding the reader that a protrusion of dura extends from the anterior cranial fossa through the...

Radiological diagnosis of mastoiditis in patients screened for acoustic neuroma

Magnetic resonance imaging is the ‘gold standard’ for screening patients suspected to have acoustic neuroma. Various abnormalities are picked up through this investigation, one of which, not uncommonly reported, is mastoiditis. This requires referral to otolaryngology and further evaluation. In...