Journal Reviews archive for January 2018
What is the evidence for contralateral tonsillectomy in TORS for known unilateral tonsil malignancy?
The concept of field changes by carcinogens within the upper aerodigestive tract is well established with reported rates of synchronous tumours of 4% and second primaries of 36%. The tonsil in particular has the highest rate of synchronous tumours, postulated...
Mobile phones to assess productivity in rhinitis
Uncontrolled and moderate to severe allergic rhinitis (AR) has significant negative impact on work productivity. Work Productivity and Activity Impairment Allergic Specific Questionnaire (WPAI:AS) used to measure that impact showed this. Work productivity seems to improve when AR is treated....
Prostaglandin versus leukotriene receptor-antagonists in treatment of seasonal allergic rhinitis RCT phase II
Seasonal allergic rhinitis is very common. Failure to control the disease with mono-therapy leads to dual therapy treatment with less compliance and reduced quality of life. A prostaglandin receptor antagonist (ONO-4053) showed some efficacy in controlling allergic rhinitis in animal...
McIsaac scores in tonsillitis
Acute tonsillitis is usually caused by a viral infection, however often antibiotics are prescribed without a confirmed diagnosis of a bacterial infection. The Modified Centor (McIsaac) criteria, which include fever (>38°c), tonsillar exudate, no cough, anterior cervical lymphadenitis and age,...
The effect of adenotonsillectomy on the immune system
Parents often ask about the effect of adenotonsillectomy on the immune system, with concerns that the child may be prone to more infections postoperatively due to the absence of immune tissue. This Belgian literature review looked at the local and...
Fluorescein use during parotidectomy
The authors of this study retrospectively reviewed the surgical charts of seven patients who underwent parotidectomy for tumour resection. In all these patients, Fluorescein sodium was used to enhance the contrast between parotid tumour tissue and the facial nerve. Using...
Balloon Eustachian tuboplasty
Eustachian tube dysfunction is a common condition, which is unfortunately lacking an effective treatment. This small study demonstrated the effectiveness of balloon Eustachian tuboplasty in a district hospital setting. It has been in use since 2010 and is beginning to...
The role of imaging in differentiating rare temporal bone neoplasms
This paper provides a useful tool to assist in determining the diagnosis of benign neoplasms of the temporal bone using readily available imaging modalities. Specifically, this group have looked at chondrosarcoma, an expansile hypermetabolic mass lesion usually found in the...
Metaplasia of the concave septum
This group conducted a one year prospective study and sampled mucosa from 42 randomly selected patients with septal deviation at a single centre. They found significantly higher rate of squamous metaplasia and lymphocytic infiltration in septal mucosa on the concave...
Malignant change of pleomorphic adenoma
Pleomorphic adenoma is the most common salivary gland tumour. The potential to undergo malignant transformation is rare but well described. The authors of this article present a case report of metastasis where the preceding submandibular gland pleomorphic adenoma preserves its...
British English speech test for occupational hearing assessment
It is very important to properly assess occupational fitness for several occupations such as police officer, military personnel or fire fighter. The aim of this study was to develop a British English speech in noise (SiN) test as a tool...
Self-report of hearing aids handling difficulties
The authors have raised an interesting subject concerning the ability of customers to self-assess their hearing aid handling skills. Previous studies showed that 96% of customers when asked if they are able to manage their hearing aids answered ‘yes’. However,...
