Search

The pioneers of endoscopy and the sword swallowers

Adolf Kussmaul drew inspiration from an unlikely source to further the development of endoscopy… The early pioneers of airway endoscopy and oesophagoscopy were bedevilled by two major and seemingly insurmountable problems. One was the paucity of light sources, with reliance...

Peter McKelvie 1932 – 2026

Peter McKelvie, an outstanding head & neck surgeon and oncologist, died on 6 February aged 93. He suffered a spontaneous subdural haemorrhage. British otolaryngology has lost the most remarkable talent of his generation. He combined a prodigious intellect with effortless...

Cognitive effort and listening in everyday life

Dining with family members, amongst the clinking of dishes and glasses, the sounds of conversations and laughter, the husband, a user of hearing aids, misses his wife’s request to bring another bottle of wine. After a third try, the wife,...

Head and neck cancer and PET-CT

Positron emission tomography-computed tomography (PET-CT) is an imaging technique in which abnormalities of tissue metabolism are precisely superimposed onto the anatomy. It relies on the premise that malignant cells are more metabolically active compared with non-malignant cells. On this basis,...

What’s new in auditory processing?

Auditory processing disorder (APD) has had a controversial history, stemming mainly from lack of scientific rigor and accepted clinical definition. That situation is now changing. Driven by the huge number of people with unaddressed listening difficulties, basic discoveries in neuroscience,...

2014: Are today’s implantable devices better than conventional solutions for patients with conductive or mixed hearing loss?

Patients with conductive or mixed hearing loss become candidates for amplification when reconstructive surgery is not viable. Three common amplification options are conventional acoustic devices, such as behind-the-ear devices (BTEs), (implantable) bone-conduction devices and active middle ear implants. The goal...