This study examined the effect of platinum compounds on hearing in 104 children with solid tumours. As would be expected, this group was heterogeneous and included a range of ages, tumour types, chemotherapeutic agents and dosing regimens. Age-appropriate audiometry was...
Use of chemo-radiotherapy for advanced laryngeal cancer led to a major shift in treatment as an alternative to total laryngectomy. Despite widespread adoption of chemoradiotherapy, survival rates have not improved and the original premise of matching neoadjuvant chemotherapy tumour response...
Do the potential side-effects on hearing and tinnitus need to be a ‘necessary evil’ of platinum-based chemotherapy? How strong is our evidence base when offering advice to patients and fellow clinicians? David Baguley and his team from the University of...
Hilotherapy involves administering regulated cold compression through a facemask. The principle of this treatment involves cyotherapy as a traditional treatment for reducing inflammation, pain and swelling following trauma. It is believed that using hilotherapy (Hilotherm®), which uses a mask to...
The authors of this study, from the University of Michigan, evaluated the role of induction chemotherapy for patients with stages III and IV resectable oral squamous cell carcinoma. Nineteen patients were initially enrolled in the induction chemotherapy cohort. Patients with...
This is a meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials. Despite some limitations, they were able to identify that honey could reduce the severity of radio/chemotherapy induced oral mucositis. They acknowledge that the exact aetiology in the effect of honey is not...
Shoulder dysfunction is common after neck dissection and includes shoulder pain, limited abduction and scapular winging. Modifications of the radical neck dissection were designed to limit morbidity, however, even with accessory nerve-sparing neck dissections, shoulder dysfunction can be seen. Shoulder...
Chemo-radiotherapy is the standard of care for organ preservation in stage three and four oropharyngeal cancer, prospective data on patients over 65 has not been available as they are usually excluded from randomised trials. This paper reviews the experience of...
The aim of this study was to assess the safety of elective cervicofacial rhytidectomy following radiotherapy for head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCC). A greater proportion of HNSCC patients are infected with certain strains of the human papillomavirus, which...
The rarest of the rare, sinonasal tumours form only a small part of the total number of head and neck tumours and undifferentiated carcinoma (SNUC) is one of the rarest of this group. There is some data (and some expert...
Between 11 and 18% of nasopharyngeal carcinomas (NPC) occur in the paediatric age group but there are no specific management guidelines for this age group. Tunisia is a region with an intermediate incidence of NPC, the authors studied 40 cases...
HPV-related squamous cell cancers are an increasingly common cause of malignancy in the oropharynx. There is evidence that these cancers are associated with a significantly improved overall survival compared to conventional HPV-negative tumours. The optimal treatment for such cancers is...