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Thyroidectomy patient survey regarding voice outcomes

One of the common adverse effects following thyroid surgery is a change in voice, which may be related to iatrogenic injury to the recurrent laryngeal nerve or superior laryngeal nerve during surgery or by direct cancer involvement. The burden of...

Dysphagia following intubation during the COVID-19 pandemic

Dysphagia is a known sequela of mechanical ventilation and intubation. About a third of patients discharged from hospital after acute respiratory distress syndrome present with dysphagia. The authors of this review have considered the implications for patients intubated due to...

Speech analysis via mobile phone – is there an app for that?

Experienced ENT surgeons will often be able to discern the likelihood of significant laryngeal pathology in a patient referred with dysphonia by the sound of their voice during the initial history-taking phase of a consultation. With the move earlier in...

The electromagnetic larynx

Current treatment options for a bilateral vocal cord palsy (tracheostomy, posterior cordotomy, arytenoidectomy) are suboptimal, with a focus primarily on a static means of airway restoration at the expense of voice production and potentially swallow safety. This paper reports on...

Hearing loss in the young and self-esteem

How can those involved in the care of children with hearing loss identify those at risk of low self-esteem? This study provides some guidance. Overall differences from hearing peers in terms of communication skills, physical appearance and social maturity place...

Enhanced recovery following surgery for head and neck cancer – the current evidence

Enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) programmes are now well established in many surgical specialities as a means of reducing postoperative complications and length of stay in hospital. Whilst many head and neck teams have interventions used to aid postoperative recovery,...

Sinus airflow after FESS using models and fluid dynamics

This is a very interesting study from Australia and New Zealand looking at flow of air into the nose and sinuses after FESS surgery. There is plenty of data regarding computational fluid dynamics for preoperative cases but not much for...

Outpatient closure of CSF leaks: a good idea or a step too far?

After day-case septoplasty, day case thyroidectomy, now day case CSF leak repair – has the pendulum moved too far? The authors put forward a convincing case for what, only 10 years ago, would have sounded like a provocation. They quote...

Management of the neck in maxillary sinus carcinomas

Primary malignant tumours of the sinonasal tract account for less than 10% of head and neck cancers, of which the maxilla is the second most common subsite and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) is the most prevalent histological type. Maxillary SCCs...

A 3D-printed endoscopic sinus surgery simulator – validity testing

The challenge of gaining sufficient experiential learning to successfully navigate the learning curve toward competence has long been a challenge in surgical education. The COVID-19 pandemic, and its impact on elective capacity, has presented a further challenge to the acquisition...

Does pollution worsen inflammatory nasal problems?

This ambitious study, conducted over a period of four years, assessed 27,863 patients and compared levels of allergic rhinitis (AR) or chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) with the levels of air pollution recorded, as assessed by levels of particulate matter (PM10). They...