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2377 results found

Passive smoking and rhinosinusitis

One would expect that subjects exposed to more passive smoke would have a significantly increased level of rhinosinusitis. This study looked at a reasonable number of sinusitis and control subjects (404 and 165) using hair nicotine as an assessment of...

Influence of smoking on vocal fold polyps

A vocal fold polyp is a benign lesion related to phonotrauma which induces upregulation of inflammatory processes and histological changes can occur in the epithelium and lamina propria. Whether smoking produces additional or enhanced changes is the subject of this...

Smoking and immunotherapy – does it worsen outcome?

This interesting study aimed to address the issue of smoking in patients who had their allergic rhinits treated by sublingual immunotherapy (SLIT). Assessment was with validated quality of life questionnaires. There were 163 patients recruited in Greece who had completed...

Smoking causes cancer – so what’s new?

You may well ask what is the novel value of a paper looking at smoking habits in patients with confirmed head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC), but this paper highlights some pertinent points for clinical practice in the current...

Active smoking predicts poor outcome in HPV positive oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma

Tobacco smoking is a well-known risk factor in human papilloma virus (HPV)-negative head and neck squamous cell cancer. Its effects include increased risk of treatment failure, distant metastases and reduced overall survival. HPV has been increasingly implicated as a causative...

Surgery for snoring

The prevalence of sleep-disordered breathing is rapidly increasing. There is variable evidence for surgical treatments for snoring currently. This Belgian study was a retrospective review of 84 patients who underwent surgery for snoring between May 2011 and December 2015. A...

Don’t smoke after a septoplasty!

This is a retrospective review of 281 patients, all of whom underwent elective septoplasty. Simply put, those who smoked displayed a much higher postoperative septal perforation rate than those who did not. So, some cautionary advice for patients undergoing this...

Diagnosis and treatment of snoring in adults – S2k Guideline of the German Society of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery

This article summarises the work done by the German Society of Otorhinolaryngology, who have developed guidelines for the management of snoring. ‘S2k’ is German nomenclature for a consensus based guideline, which (for those of you interested in such things), is...

Lies, damned lies and relative risk reduction

Chris Potter has a thing or two to say about the use of statistics and, in doing so, he takes us to a Friday night steak house that is prone to airway disasters and on a short tour of his...

Electronic nicotine delivery systems (e-cigarettes): what you need to know

As an aid to stopping smoking e-cigarettes may have a role, but they are heavily promoted by industry as a leisure pursuit and desirable fashion accessory. Sneh Biyani and Craig Derkay gives a thorough account of what we know about...

What are the risk factors for new onset tinnitus?

Factors associated with tinnitus have mainly been studied cross-sectionally. Tinnitus is associated with hearing loss, noise exposure, ototoxic medication, head and neck trauma, smoking and depression and anxiety. Only a few studies exist that report on risk factors for developing...

Patient-related factors that require revision surgery for otosclerosis

Stapes surgery for otosclerosis has a high success and low complication rate but, over a period of time, good results can deteriorate, requiring revision surgery. In this study, the authors have focused on patients’ demographic data as predictive factors for...