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Lockdown has been bad for children, but it might mean they don’t need surgery anymore
Our editor’s choice for this edition reviews an article looking at the effects of lockdown on symptom prevalence in children with adenotonsillar diseases. In this unprecedented COVID-19 era that we are all living and working in, risk assessment has taken...
Smartphone hearing test
Our Editors’ Choice for this edition reviews an article looking at the use of a smartphone app for hearing screening. We have all had to integrate telehealth into our practice to some extent recently and this paper examines a teleaudiology...
Chronic phase of concussion and stability of gaze
It has been known that vestibular symptoms can persist for several months after concussion. The authors designed this study to assess the effect of chronic concussion (more than one year) on gaze stability and the relationship between deficits in gaze...
Can we centralise cochlear implant surgery and keep most appointments close to home?
The NHS Five Year Forward View promoted seeing patients closer to home in order to provide better care, cut down on missed appointments and reduce costs. This encouraged the development of ‘hub and spoke’ models of care, but this model...
Treatment of internal carotid artery blowout with embolisation and bypass grafting (nasopharyngeal carcinoma)
Carotid artery blowout syndrome (CBS) occurs when there is rupture of the carotid artery causing massive epistaxis and bleeding through the oral cavity caused by tumour invasion, surgery, radiotherapy, or infection. This article proposes a revascularisation strategy for internal carotid...
Reduction in recurrent cholesteatoma rates with bony obliteration tympanoplasty technique
This large retrospective study from the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam compares outcomes in traditional canal wall up (CWU) and canal wall down (CWD +/- partial obliteration of mastoid bowl) mastoid surgery for cholesteatoma with bony obliteration tympanoplasty (BOT, which...
Steroid use in acute acoustic trauma
Acute acoustic trauma (AAT) injuries include noise-induced damage to inner and middle ear presenting as hearing loss, tinnitus and vertigo. Classic presentation is sensorineural hearing loss with an intact tympanic membrane. The authors carried out a case-control study in military...
Music training for cochlear implant users
The ability to enjoy music is something that is important to most people and contributes to wellbeing, as well as holding cultural significance. However, the speech signal is generally prioritised for those with cochlear implants (and indeed hearing aids). Improving...
Temporal bone drilling using artificial versus cadaveric specimens - does the specimen precipitate altered drilling techniques?
Hochman et al set an ambitious goal in their study analysing drilling strokes of eight otolaryngology residents (junior: PGY 1-3; senior: PGY 4-5) during temporal bone (TB) drilling practice using cadaveric and artificial specimens. Each trainee dissected one cadaveric and...
Blood-sampling prognostic predictors for Bell’s palsy
Bell’s palsy is generally defined as an acute-onset unilateral idiopathic mononeuropathy in the facial nerve. It is of unknown aetiology, however, inflammation is considered a major cause. Electroneurography assessing nerve excitability is the most reliable examination for predicting prognosis of...
Outcomes of larger glottic cancer volumes treated with radiotherapy
T3 glottic cancer is characterised as vocal cord fixation and/or invasion into pre-epiglottic, post-cricoid, paraglottic spaces and/or within the inner cortex of thyroid cartilage. Traditionally, laryngectomy was considered the primary option to treat T3 laryngeal glottic cancers until other options...
