This is a weighty but insightful ‘Special Feature’ paper in the June edition of Otology and Neurotology. It has the broad aim to gather current opinion from otologists, audiologists, manufacturers and health-economists from around the world on unilateral hearing implantation...
Hearing loss (HL) is the third leading chronic health condition among older adults. Most studies investigating HL and cognition have been performed in high-income countries. Risk factors for dementia (eg. hypertension, midlife hearing loss, obesity and physical inactivity) are more...
Idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss (ISSNHL) is a rare but potentially devastating condition. For patients presenting with this condition, prognosis is of paramount importance. Wu et al begin to address this issue by retrospectively studying 17 potential prognostic factors for...
Endoscopic ear surgery is a newer concept compared with the microscopic one. Both could lead to musculoskeletal pain due to the long static posture of surgeons during otologic procedures. The authors conducted a study on eight otolaryngologists, four attendings and...
It is commonly understood that existence of a palatal cleft is associated with abnormal action of tensor veli palatini muscle. Frequent middle ear effusions therefore occur because this muscle obstructs rather than opens the Eustachian tube on yawning and swallowing,...
A detailed look at the pathogenesis of acquired hearing loss due to exposure to ototoxicity during pregnancy or shortly after birth. Insights from genomic medicine have shown that, along with environmental factors causing epigenetic alterations, hearing loss may be caused...
Guest Editor, Chris Coulson, speaks to Dr Muaaz Tarabichi, a pioneer of endoscopic ear surgery, about how he has seen the technique evolve during his career, what challenges early EES practitioners have faced and his predictions for the future of...
MED-EL, a leading innovator in the field of cochlear implant research and development, has announced an agreement with the Western University (London, Canada) and Mitacs to gain exclusive access to an extraordinary synchrotron dataset of temporal bones.
Previous studies have suggested links between age-related hearing loss and structural changes in cortical regions with auditory and language functions, which could be causative of cognitive decline linked to the condition. The authors reason reduced sensory input could be causative...
Universal newborn hearing screening has allowed early diagnosis and, subsequently, early intervention in hearing loss. In 2020 the Food and Drug Administration candidacy criteria for cochlear implants (CI) expanded to include profound sensorineural hearing loss (HL) in children as young...