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The push towards scarless parotid surgery

When dealing with benign parotid pathology, high expectations are placed on the operating surgeon to preserve key neurovascular structures, especially the animating facial nerve, through meticulous dissection. With time, there has been a greater emphasis on improving cosmesis in parotid...

Storytelling is good for your memory

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) presents a challenging frontier in healthcare due to the limited availability of effective drugs. Despite its prevalence and potential progression to dementia, there remains a notable gap in pharmacological interventions targeting MCI. This month’s Editors’ Choice...

Myringoplasty in a bottle?

Management of large traumatic TM perforations can involve observation and water precautions or surgical repair. Closure rates for larger perforations can be 8-12 weeks and occurs for between 38-79%. Animal and human studies have shown that exogenous application of epidermal...

New MRI technique assesses treatment response in skull base osteomyelitis

This paper describes another useful imaging technique to monitor Necrotising Otitis Externa (NOE). Echoplanar diffusion weighted magnetic resonance (DW MR) shows high signal on the ‘ADC map’ with active disease and this reduces in signal intensity as symptoms improve. This...

Surgical voice restoration after laryngopharyngectomy

Voice restoration is one of the key rehabilitative steps after laryngectomy or total laryngopharyngectomy (TLP). Patients who undergo TLP require reconstruction – increasingly commonly with microvascular free flaps. Despite their advantages in terms of fistula rates and swallowing outcomes, these...

Mitomycin in adjuvant treatment of laryngotracheal stenosis

Laryngotracheal stenosis (LTR) is a difficult condition to manage, and the effectiveness of surgical treatment is limited by the tendency of scar tissue to reform. Mitomycin has been used as a controversial adjuvant to surgical treatment for many years. Drawbacks...

Pharyngoplasty for palatal snoring

This prospective Belgian study looked at the benefits of barbed reposition pharyngoplasty in the management of patients with isolated unilevel palatal snoring. This technique involves using a barbed suture and repositioning the palatopharyngeal muscle in a more lateral and anterior...

Hearing loss in the contralateral ear after mastoid drilling

It is difficult to conceive that most of the noise generated by drilling the mastoid would not be conveyed to the contralateral cochlea, by direct transmission through the skull bone, where the attenuation factor is only 5-10 dB. Only a...

What are the airway, voice and swallowing outcomes of a mucosal-sparing surgical approach to improving the glottic airway in bilateral vocal fold immobility?

Bilateral vocal fold immobility (BVFI) causes significant breathing problems as well as voice and swallowing difficulties. Surgical interventions aim to enlarge the glottic outlet by altering or removing glottic structures which improve breathing but often lead to worsening dysphonia and...