Journal Reviews archive for 2019
Auditory deprivation and single-sided deafness
In cases of bilateral auditory deprivation, there is clear evidence of an inverse relationship between performance after cochlear implantation and the length of severe to profound deafness prior to implantation (i.e. the longer the deprivation the poorer the outcome on...
Radiological diagnosis of mastoiditis in patients screened for acoustic neuroma
Magnetic resonance imaging is the ‘gold standard’ for screening patients suspected to have acoustic neuroma. Various abnormalities are picked up through this investigation, one of which, not uncommonly reported, is mastoiditis. This requires referral to otolaryngology and further evaluation. In...
Systemic steroid therapy for reduction of macrophage migration inhibition factor in the control of nasal polyposis
It is believed that macrophage migration inhibitory factor mediates inflammation by stimulating the release of other pro-inflammatory cytokines. The use of systemic steroids in control of nasal polyposis is an established treatment. In this study the authors have aimed at...
Bilateral medialisation thyroplasty for presbylaryngis
This retrospective case series explores the voice outcomes for 21 patients diagnosed with presbylaryngis who underwent bilateral medialisation thyroplasty at a university medical centre in Portland, Oregon, USA. Silastic was implanted in 17 patients; hydroxyapatite in four. Significant improvements were...
Novel method for determining BCC margins
This correspondence describes a new technique for determining basal cell carcinoma (BCC) borders, to aid in obtaining clear peripheral resection margins. Whilst this can be straightforward in small well-defined nodular BCCs, some BCC subtypes are ill-defined or morphoeic, and resection...
Physician burnout and resident wellness
Physician burnout and high rates of mental health issues amongst physicians are an important concern today. Several articles on this subject have been published recently. However, few articles have been written about starting life balance training early during residency. This...
The role of cVEMPs in the diagnosis of Meniere’s disease
This study sets out to determine the most useful metrics to use from cervical-vestibular evoked myogenic potential (c-VEMP) tests when the diagnosis of Meniere’s disease (MD) is unclear, or as a follow-up tool. It is known that cVEMPs can detect...
Do you feel me? Emotional processing post-traumatic brain injury
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) accounted for just under three million accident and emergency admissions in the US in 2013, with common causes including falls, traffic accidents and assaults. Difficulties processing and expressing affective communication is a common sequela of TBI...
This is what SLTs can do for mild TBI: presenting a care model
The authors of this article estimate there are around six-to-eight million people who sustain a mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) per annum in the United States (US) as a consequence of sports injuries, traffic accidents, military service-related injuries, falls, assaults...
Deglutition in pharyngolaryngectomy patients
Circular defects after total pharyngolaryngectomy present a reconstructive challenge. In this study, the authors compared the swallowing results after three reconstructive techniques: free forearm flap, free jejunal loop and folded pectoralis major flap. Forty-six patients were included and were evaluated...
The GP and the ear
General practitioners are the first members of the medical community to deal with ear problems. In this survey, 11 GPs examined 124 patients using a regular otoscope and a video-otoscope and reported their findings in a 10-item table. The same...
Listening effort and speech perception performance
Capturing speech perception performance in noisy listening environments is a key part in validating any hearing instrument. Traditionally audiologists have always measured this performance in noisy environments by looking at thresholds, i.e. speech reception thresholds or signal to noise ratios....
