Journal Reviews
Incidental findings in paranasal sinus Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) studies
Incidental findings in the paranasal sinuses of mucosal thickening and polyps in MRI studies may cause concerns for clinicians and patients. The authors studied MRIs of 982 participants with a mean age of 58.5 years who randomly and independent of...
Cochlear implantation in Ménière’s disease
This was a Belgian retrospective study of seven patients with Ménière’s disease who underwent cochlear implantation. All patients had bilateral severe to profound hearing loss and all met AAO-HNS criteria for Ménière’s disease. Follow-up for patients ranged from six months...
Facial reanimation
Non-conservative surgery in the parotid region results in a devastating complete facial paralysis (as with other causes of persistent facial palsy). Lengthening temporalis myoplasty is one of the available rehabilitating techniques. This is a series of 15 patients who had...
Long-term outcomes after endoscopic pituitary macroadenomas resection
In this retrospective study the authors attempted to find out long-term outcomes after pituitary macroadenoma resection via the endonasal endoscopic transsphenoidal route. Eighty of the 162 patients operated on met the study criteria of clinical and radiological follow-up for at...
Outcomes after facial nerve preservation surgery for large vestibular schwannomas
Large vestibular schwannomas (Koos grade three or four) are traditionally treated by surgical resection. Gross total resection of such large tumours often results in facial nerve dysfunction. Hence facial nerve preservation surgery was introduced in which maximal surgical resection is...
Cochlear implantation techniques
This issue concentrates on the advancement in techniques within the field of implant otology starting with cochlear implantation. Here it is sub-divided into indications, candidacy (including full pre-operative testing and investigations), surgical technique and outcomes for both adults and children....
A higher aspiration for fine needles
Fine needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB) has aided in the diagnosis and management of thyroid nodules for decades. Now a rapid evolution is hoped to benefit an increasing cohort of patients with small nodules and non-diagnostic investigations. This review discusses the...
What’s the risk of regrowth with partial (intracapsular) tonsillectomy
Partial (intracapsular) tonsillectomy is enjoying somewhat of a revival offering the potential for less postoperative pain and bleeding whilst relieving the obstructive element. The authors look at 303 patients, 82 of whom had partial tonsillectomy using coblation. They measured pre...
Laryngopharyngeal reflux (LPR) in posterior laryngitis
The authors of this study investigated the prevalence of acid reflux in the proximal oesophagus and functional gastrointestinal symptoms in patients with posterior laryngitis. They analysed plasma motilin as well as health-related quality of life (HRQOL) questionnaires before and after...
Deep neck infections
This study from Shanghai is a retrospective review of 142 patients presenting to an ENT hospital with deep neck infections (DNIs). The findings of the study are comparable to many of the previous studies, however the authors found tonsillitis and...
ENT emergencies
This Belgian paper reports the epidemiology of 1296 patients attending the emergency department with ENT problems over a five-year period. As expected the most common presentation was epistaxis, but interestingly vertigo seemed to be the second most common presentation to...
Day care or admission for aesthetic nasal surgery?
Day-care surgery is gaining in popularity throughout the surgical specialities due to economical constraints and patient convenience. However this is not without risk and a careful procedure by procedure evaluation should be performed to prove the suitability of this type...