The aetiological role of human papillomavirus (HPV) in oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (OPSCC) is well established, and its incidence has massively increased over the last decade, whilst the incidence of HPV-negative OPSCC is declining. Although we know that HPV-positive OPSCC...
The AJCC cancer staging manual was updated in 2017 (8th edition). It is used in the MDT setting for planning treatment and assessing prognosis for individual patients, and is also widely used internationally in clinical trials. Unlike previous iterations of...
This study from Shanghai is a retrospective review of 142 patients presenting to an ENT hospital with deep neck infections (DNIs). The findings of the study are comparable to many of the previous studies, however the authors found tonsillitis and...
Technology and innovation has provided modern head and neck surgeons with successive generations of robotic surgical systems, fibre-optic lasers, and novel tools which have ushered in a new era of minimally invasive surgery for tumours of the pharynx and larynx....
Transoral robotic surgery has an established role in head and neck cancer surgery. But how easy is it to set up a service in a resource-constrained environment? Gouri Pantvaidya and Ameya Pai give us a view from the Indian subcontinent....
It is well known that oropharyngeal dysphagia (OD) is a symptom arising from many different aetiologies or disease conditions and that it is a significant morbidity affecting people’s quality of life. Establishing the prevalence of OD is complicated by the...
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,...
Haemangiomas are benign vascular tumours characterised histologically by a marked proliferation of blood vessels. They can be either congenital or acquired, and can affect the tongue, both within the oral cavity and the oropharynx. A variety of interventions exist for...
The authors propose that high neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) is associated with poor disease-free survival (DFS) in patients with human papillomavirus positive (HPV+) oropharyngeal cancer (OPC). This is a retrospective study that compared the outcomes of 43 patients treated for HPV+...
As being an anterior skull base surgeon becomes the aspiration of many ENT trainees, Professor Nicolai gives his personal insights into the future for this exciting subspeciality. Having been directly involved in the evolution of transnasal endscopic surgery (TES) since...
Introduction Over the past 150 years, military personnel wounded in action had a survival rate of approximately 80% [1]. During the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, those servicemen wounded in action have a 90.4% survival rate [2]. During the...
The authors retrospectively reviewed 44 patients who underwent a combined transoral and transcervical treatment without mandibulectomy for oropharyngeal malignancy. The combined approach was performed first by a neck dissection followed by transoral excision of the lesion and reconstruction by a...