Journal Reviews
Laryngeal disorders associated with HIV infection
Following the introduction, and now widespread availability, of combined antiretroviral therapy, HIV has become a chronic disease with minimal or indeed no negative impact on life expectancy. As a result, there is a growing public health interest in establishing the...
Treatment of internal carotid artery blowout with embolisation and bypass grafting (nasopharyngeal carcinoma)
Carotid artery blowout syndrome (CBS) occurs when there is rupture of the carotid artery causing massive epistaxis and bleeding through the oral cavity caused by tumour invasion, surgery, radiotherapy, or infection. This article proposes a revascularisation strategy for internal carotid...
Core biopsies are good enough for lymphomas
This paper, from the South of England, has reviewed ultrasound-guided core needle biopsies over a six-year period investigating the use of the detection of head and neck lymphomas. There were 367 samples included from 226 patients; 215 of the 226...
Structures determining T4a, T4b
This paper for tertiary cancer centre in India attempted to determine whether patients with T4b oral cancers involving the 'masticator space' should be treated with survival intent comparable to T4a cancers. Over a 7-year period, 30 patients with T4b cancers...
Predicting the need for salvage laryngectomy
The treatment of laryngeal cancer has seen a shift towards organ preservation strategies with non-surgical treatment offering equivalent survival outcomes. Nonetheless, salvage total laryngectomy (SLT) remains an important curative management option in cases of treatment failure or recurrence. The authors...
Active smoking predicts poor outcome in HPV positive oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma
Tobacco smoking is a well-known risk factor in human papilloma virus (HPV)-negative head and neck squamous cell cancer. Its effects include increased risk of treatment failure, distant metastases and reduced overall survival. HPV has been increasingly implicated as a causative...
Intraoperative identification of primary tumours in unknown primary head and neck cancer using transoral laser microsurgery with frozen sections
The aim of the study was to compare the sensitivity and specificity of intraoperative identification of primary tumours in patients with unknown primary head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (UP HNSCC) using transoral laser microsurgery (TLM) with frozen sections, with...
Elevated prevalence of late-onset dysphagia among head and neck cancer survivors and identifying risk factors
Dysphagia is one of the most common problems affecting head and neck cancer (HNC) survivors. There are few studies investigating late-onset dysphagia post-treatment. The authors set out to investigate the prevalence of dysphagia-related diagnoses and procedures five years’ post-treatment, changes...
Delays in oral cancer
This is a review from Canada where they attempt to relate delays in oral cancer presentation to treatment and the impact on stage, diagnosis and survival. They recognise that potentially the most significant delay is between the patient first noticing...
Significance of abnormal retropharyngeal nodes in head and neck cancer
Abnormal retropharyngeal lymph nodes (RLN) have prognostic relevance for patients with oral, oropharyngeal or nasopharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (SCC). However, consensus on the evaluation and management of abnormal RLN in these patients is lacking. The authors of this paper provided...
Narrow band imaging improves diagnosis of malignant laryngeal lesions
The manufacturers of narrow band imaging (NBI) claim better visualisation of mucosal abnormalities when compared with simple white light. The primary aim of the study was to compare the diagnostic accuracy of NBI and white light to diagnose malignant laryngeal...
Lymph node ratio in tongue cancer
This is an analysis of 88 patients treated in Switzerland between 2003 and 2012. All patients had a selective neck dissection and recurrence occurred in 25 patients. Overall and disease specific survival were 72% and 80%. They specifically looked at...
