Journal Reviews archive for January 2016
Time to endoscopic sinus surgery and outcomes
A well written prospective study, which demonstrates that patients who require endoscopic sinus surgery, should be operated on without long delay since this achieves better and more sustained outcomes. There were 1493 patients undergoing primary nasal surgery who had completed...
Which is worse – unilateral or bilateral tinnitus?
Few studies have analysed subjective aspects of tinnitus or the association between clinical characteristics and the directionality of tinnitus. The study subjects comprised 207 patients who presented with tinnitus over two years and underwent tinnitus-related physical examinations and tinnitograms (includes...
Patient reported outcomes improve if antibiotic choice is directed from endoscopic culture results in chronic rhinosinusitis
The use of antibiotics in chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) has been established as part of the EPOS guidelines, as has the role of taking swabs for microbiology culture. There has not been much literature however on whether tailoring antibiotics in response...
No soup for you…! Early identification of postoperative perforation increases the success of conservative management
Iatrogenic perforation of the hypopharynx or cervical oesophagus is a well-recognised life-threatening complication. Previous studies have demonstrated that conservative management with broad-spectrum antibiotics and withholding oral feeding may avoid morbidity associated with surgical repair. This study addresses when conservative management...
Middle ear pressures with different anaesthetic agents
The use of appropriate anaesthetic agents is essential to avoid complications during middle ear surgery. This Turkish study attempted to identify whether intravenous (IV) anaesthetics (propofol) or inhalational agents (sevoflurane) cause more variations in middle ear pressures. The authors performed...
Surgery in the only hearing ear
In this study the Turkish authors attempted to investigate how quality of life was impacted in patients who underwent surgery for chronic otitis media in their only remaining hearing ear (OHE). Some surgeons view this as high risk due to...
Do the modern multiple microphones with beamforming facility really help implantees?
In this study the authors aimed to assess the benefit beamforming multiple microphones provide to implantees. Speech reception thresholds were assessed in different situations; fixed masking noise from eight loudspeakers around the subject at 0°, ±45°, ±90°, ±135°, and 180°...
Is auditory frequency discrimination related to speech recognition in implantees?
Why do two identical implantees perform differently? This fundamental question has not yet been answered despite the extensive research in the field. The authors attempted to clarify the issue, or at least approach it, assessing the association between deficits in...
The initial management of nasal trauma
Fractures of the nose are the most common facial fractures and reported to be the third most common fracture of the human skeleton. Nasal trauma can lead to obvious or more subtle loss of function or form and cosmetic compromise....
Risk factors for pharyngocutaneous fistula after laryngectomy
Pharyngocutaneous or salivary fistula is a feared complication following laryngectomy, causing significant morbidity, prolonged hospital inpatient stay / cost and mortality. Previous radiotherapy / chemoradiotherapy is a well recognised risk factor and leads many surgeons to recommend onlay pectoralis major...
Listening in noise to predict learning disability
Noise disrupts the neural coding of consonants more than vowels. Listening in noise presents a challenge for everybody, but particularly to children whose language skills are underdeveloped. This team views background noise as a disruption to the necessary neural mechanisms...
Hearing intervention to prevent dementia
People with hearing impairment have an increased risk of incident all-cause dementia proportional to the severity of loss compared to those with normal hearing. Treating hearing impairment may therefore serve to slow or prevent the onset of cognitive decline. This...
