Journal Reviews archive for July 2017
Rates of tonsillitis increase as rates of tonsillectomy reduce
This retrospective study sought to determine the effect of reduced rates of tonsillectomy in England and Wales, over a 13-year period, on rate of hospital admissions for the complications of acute tonsil infection (acute tonsillitis and quinsy), and hospital bed-day...
Sublingual house dust mite immunotherapy
House dust mite immunotherapy in allergic rhinitis was shown to be effective in trials with a relatively small number of participants. The authors of this study performed a multicentre double-blind randomised controlled trial to investigate effects of house dust mite...
Transnasal endoscopic repair of CSF leaks
This Italian study was a retrospective review of 110 consecutive patients who underwent repair of their CSF leak via the transnasal endoscopic approach from 2003 to 2013. All surgery was performed by the same primary surgeon and patients with a...
Wearable sensors for assessment of vestibular disorders
This prospective preliminary study describes the use of commercially available wearable inertial sensors (Mobility LabTM) in assessing the functional ability of individuals with vestibular disorders. Traditionally the Romberg’s, Tandem Walking and Fukuda’s Stepping tests were used to clinically evaluate individuals...
Predicting which oropharyngeal SCC HPV-positive patients should avoid de-escalated treatment
This study is timely for many reasons and raises very important questions in the management of the current rise in HPV-positive patients with oropharyngeal cancer (OPC). The uniqueness of this group within head and neck cancer in terms of favourable...
Commercial desiccants or uncooked rice?
Moisture can damage any electronic devices including hearing aids. It is commonly known that rice can ‘rescue’ an electronic device if wetted. Authors of the below-described study researched whether uncooked rice could be used as an efficient equivalent to often...
What blood tests should be requested to investigate vocal cord paralysis?
Patients who are discovered to have a vocal cord palsy with no obvious cause on history or examination routinely undergo investigations to exclude an underlying pathology. Cross-sectional imaging of the relevant recurrent laryngeal nerve is required, but considerable variability has...
A new hydrogel dural sealant for CSF repair
This paper reports the findings of a multicentre prospective randomised trial conducted to demonstrate the efficacy of the Adherus Dural Sealant for FDA approval. The Adherus Dural Sealant was compared with the control, DuraSeal Dural Sealant. It was applied to...
The initial electroneuronography result after temporal bone trauma related facial palsy may be misleading
It is taught that a complete facial nerve (FN) palsy after temporal bone (TB) trauma should be conservatively managed if electroneuronography (ENoG) shows a less than 90% degeneration of response compared to the contralateral side. This small study from the...
Red flags in the development of childhood speech and language
Problems of speech and language in early childhood can influence a child’s emotional development, academic prowess and quality of life. This article is a consensus report from the Netherlands describing 124 clinical signs and 34 red flags of atypical speech...
Planning for end of life care: is there a role for the speech and language therapist?
This article presents a scoping review of the research literature on the role of speech and language therapists in palliative care settings. The researchers conducted a search using several electronic databases focusing on palliative, terminal and end of life (EOL)...
Should we reconsider induction chemotherapy in advanced stage laryngeal cancer?
Use of chemo-radiotherapy for advanced laryngeal cancer led to a major shift in treatment as an alternative to total laryngectomy. Despite widespread adoption of chemoradiotherapy, survival rates have not improved and the original premise of matching neoadjuvant chemotherapy tumour response...
