Kate Prior is an anaesthetist who has, quite literally, been there, done that. In this article she manages to use words on a page to bring to life some of the conditions and challenges she faced as a member of...
In this article Siobhán Brennan explores continuing professional development (CPD) in all its glory! She outlines why it’s important to continue learning throughout our careers, highlights some of the challenges facing those trying to undertake CPD and discusses the variety...
3D printing has increasing applications in rhinology, for instance to create patient-specific preoperative models for procedure planning, including designing a template for reconstruction planning following tumour resection, patient consultation and customised prostheses. The authors focused their review on the role...
This is an interesting paper on patients with unilateral hearing loss and incapacitating tinnitus. The present study was conducted on 23 patients who had a cochlear implant for unilateral hearing loss including patients with single sided deafness (SSD). Most of...
This is a paper from the Netherlands reviewing 62 patients who underwent maxillomandibular advancement for moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnoea. The authors observed a 71% success rate with mean apnoea hypopnea index (AHI) reduction of 69%. There was no...
Bone conduction implants (BCI) are alternatives when the use and benefit of conventional, prosthetic equipment is limited or contraindicated in patients who suffer from conductive, mixed and single-sided deafness. They are broadly divided into two main groups delivering vibration directly...
Historically, pituitary tumours have been surgically managed with an open, transcranial approach. Although this approach still has its merits in large intracranial adenomas, technological advancement has allowed smaller tumours to be debulked via a transseptal microscopic technique. These days, the...
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...
This is an interesting study aimed to determine the timing for successful surgical intervention in improving the sense of smell in patients with chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyps (CRSwNP). A total of 86 CRSwNP patients with loss of smell and...
An American study retrospectively looked at the language outcomes of 204 children implanted either bilaterally, sequentially or unilaterally. All children received their first implant before the age of three years, and language measures were collected when the children were aged...
Hypokinetic dysarthria, seen in 70–90% of people with Parkinson’s, causes reduced range of movement during speech production, reduced volume, rate, pitch and intelligibility. This study aimed to explore the role of higher cognitive function in speech production by asking 20...
As of December 2020, seven robotic surgical systems have received approval for use in different jurisdictions, and many more task-specific robots are in the pipeline. Jack Faulkner takes us through what’s on the horizon for head and neck cancer surgery....