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Does ‘weekend effect’ alter post tonsillectomy haemorrhage rates?

Staffing levels are generally low over the weekends and senior physicians are less easily available. It is generally believed that this affects patients undergoing high-risk surgery. Whether doing tonsillectomy at weekends adds to the risks of post tonsillectomy haemorrhage is...

Trends in the incidence of oropharyngeal cancer

The recent rise in HPV-related oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma is well described. There has been a significant shift from tobacco-driven to virus-driven cancers at this anatomical site. This retrospective study analysed US tumour registry data over a long period (1973–2009)...

Aural fullness in Ménière’s disease

This survey of the Finnish Ménière’s Association aimed to examine the severity and consequences of aural fullness, the least reported cardinal symptom of Ménière’s disease. An initial pilot survey informed a second, restructured survey, giving a total of 726 respondents...

Globus – benign when the sole symptom

This is a prospective cohort study of Danish patients that presented to an otolaryngologist’s office with globus over the course of a year. They accounted for 4% of new patients, amounting to 122 patients in this study (57 patients were...

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...

Your voice and your personality

Variations of vocal effort are a normal adaptation to difficult communication situations. However, persistence of these abnormal strategies can lead to various functional dysphonias. In this experiment, the authors tested 41 females aged 18-52. The subjects were asked to instruct...

Does the season affect the diagnosis of vestibular disorders?

There are mixed results in the literature regarding seasonal variation in the presentation of various peripheral vestibular disorders. In this large population study involving over 20,000 patients recruited from 116 ENT practices across Germany, the authors analysed the demographic characteristics...

Doing it for the men: diversifying the speech and language therapy profession

It is known that many health professions are dominated by females, particularly the allied health professions, such as speech and language therapy. This is more pronounced in the US than in the UK, Australia and other countries. The authors of...

Persistent symptoms of smell loss after COVID-19 infection

Anosmia as a result of COVID-19 infection is well recognised. This timely and topical French paper looks at 115 patients with proven SARS-CoV-2 infection, who were contacted with specific questions about olfactory and gustatory disturbance. They found 81% of patients...

Loudness in non-organic hearing loss

Non-organic hearing loss has been of interest to researchers for a long time. In this study the authors compared a loudness rating measured in relation to the sound level for 1000 Hz in normal hearing patients and patients diagnosed with...

Don’t be too apologetic: disclosing communication difficulties

People who stutter are frequently considered less intelligent or less confident, and are often discriminated against. These negative perceptions have been found to differ slightly across different cultural groups. For Hebrew speakers in Israel, having a stutter can have a...

Are you a man or a mouse?

Ok so the phrase is about bravery – however, this paper considers the differences in auditory cortex connectivity, cognition and emotion between humans and mice. The study began with 21 mice, but usable data were obtained from only 16. Notably,...