You searched for "neurotology"
Should we be doing earlier MRIs in sudden sensorineural hearing loss?
There is recognised variation between ENT departments in exact imaging protocols for the workup of idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss (ISSNHL) but a routine MRI to exclude retrocochlear pathology is standard, usually following immediate treatment with oral +/- intratympanic steroids....
The debate: endoscopic vs microscopic ear surgery – meta-analysis of outcomes
Although the endoscopic approach to ear surgery has become more common in clinical practice, the debate about its role versus the traditional microscopic approach continues in many ENT units. This meta-analysis from the Mount Sinai ENT department in New York...
The continued evolution of surgical techniques for bone anchored hearing devices
This paper is not the first, and is unlikely to be the last, to look at a variation on the current technique for inserting the percutaneous titanium bone-anchored component of a bone conduction hearing device. In less than a decade,...
Can we tell the difference between benign recurrent vertigo, migraine and Menière’s disease?
I chose to review this article as it reminds us of the difficulties in diagnosing dizzy patients accurately and the significant crossover of symptoms between the diagnoses. Does Benign Recurrent Vertigo (BRV) even exist as a separate entity? BRV is...
An app to help display hearing results
Vestibular neuronitis (VN) is a common condition that we treat. Despite this, many of us lack the in-depth knowledge and scientific reasons for doing what we do. Granted, the evidence is lacking in some areas but this paper is worth...
The initial electroneuronography result after temporal bone trauma related facial palsy may be misleading
It is taught that a complete facial nerve (FN) palsy after temporal bone (TB) trauma should be conservatively managed if electroneuronography (ENoG) shows a less than 90% degeneration of response compared to the contralateral side. This small study from the...
Personal music systems are causing hearing loss
Sitting next to a teenager on a train with their iPod turned up loud enough for the entire carriage to hear is annoying, most will agree. Perhaps I might educate them about the risks of ‘music’ (if you can call...
Cochlear implant electrode insertion technique
Atraumatic cochlear implant insertion techniques (so-called ‘soft surgery’) are now standard practice in most centres for all cases (no longer just for attempted hearing preservation cases). This has led to several studies examining cochlear trauma and electrode insertion force. In...
OTO-104 in noise-induced and cisplatin-induced hearing loss
These two animal studies report on potential new applications for intra-tympanic OTO-104, a slow-release hydrogel formulation of dexamethasone that is currently being used in a Europe-wide randomised trial for Ménière’s disease. In the first paper, guinea pigs were given a...
A raised neutrophil / lymphocyte ratio predicts vestibular schwannoma growth
It has long been known that the neutrophil to lymphocyte count ratio (NLR) is a marker of inflammation and that a higher ratio relates to poorer outcomes in some malignant tumours including some head and neck cancers. Neutrophilia (and therefore...
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...
