ENT features
Reflux – diagnostic tools and special considerations in singers
Depending on your point of view, laryngopharyngeal reflux (LPR) is either ubiquitous or is over-diagnosed. Are singers more prone to LPR? What are the best tests? Mark Watson and Jane Shaw tell us more. Laryngopharyngeal reflux (LPR: the backflow of...
OBITUARY: Prof Shanmugam Kameswaran (1923-2021)
Professor Shanmugam Kameswaran was born in 1923 and did his MBBS and MS at Madras Medical College, India, under PV Cherian who later became the Governor of Maharashtra, India. He worked as his assistant and left for the UK in...
Sniffing out the evidence – COVID-19 and loss of sense of smell and taste
Louis Pasteur once observed: “In the fields of observation chance favors only the prepared mind.” Professor Hopkins was certainly prepared when a few anecdotes of smell problems started to accumulate early in the pandemic’s course. Post-viral olfactory loss is nothing...
Running a post-COVID smell clinic
Over the past year, much of our effort as a speciality has been directed towards crisis management and keeping services afloat. Our practice has changed in untold ways, but unprecedented numbers of patients with smell disorders will increasingly require our...
Loss of smell after COVID-19: a view from the patient forums
Patient advocate, Chrissi Kelly, founder of AbScent, talks about how the pandemic has changed the way we think about smell loss. The high prevalence of chemosensory impairment as a result of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has shone a much-needed spotlight on...
Fifth Sense James Lind Alliance Priority Setting Partnership for smell and taste disorders
Research priorities in the past have been dominated by the quixotic curiosity of individual academics and the capricious generosity of funding organisations. There must be a better way... At Fifth Sense, research is fundamental to the work we do. Above...
In conversation with Professor Valentina Parma, Head of GCCR
Smell has long been regarded as the Cinderella of the senses, oft neglected by clinicians, the research community and lay public. The Global Consortium for Chemosensory Research looks to change all that. Our roving reporter, Abigail Walker, talks to its...
Unpacking the World Health Organization’s World Report on Hearing: what does it say?
The inaugural report on hearing from the World Health Organisation is a tool for advocacy, and for getting hearing loss on government agendas. Nguyen Ngoc Bao Tran was 11 months old when her hearing loss was diagnosed. Despite being informed...
Mapping the financial and disease burden of hearing loss and associated interventions
The prevalence and burden of ear and hearing disorders is huge and, historically, has been underappreciated. Globally, unaddressed hearing loss poses a growing public health challenge, requiring urgent attention from policymakers, health professionals and civil society. The recently published World...
Differing outcomes of three Sub-Saharan Africa journeys with the common goal of task sharing in audiology
Task sharing can be designed and implemented specific to the needs of each programme. Foundational principles of global health include developing local leadership as a means to successful sustainable service provision in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) or regions. It...
The pioneers of endoscopy and the sword swallowers
Adolf Kussmaul drew inspiration from an unlikely source to further the development of endoscopy… The early pioneers of airway endoscopy and oesophagoscopy were bedevilled by two major and seemingly insurmountable problems. One was the paucity of light sources, with reliance...
Sushruta and Indian rhinoplasty
Vijay Pothula explains rhinoplasty’s roots in ancient Indian Ayurvedic medicine, and how it was introduced to the Western world. In 1794 The Gentleman’s Magazine published a surgical operation which was long established in India but unknown in Europe [1]. A...
