Journal Reviews
To monitor the nerves or not?
Whilst intraoperative nerve monitoring has become the standard of care for mastoid and parotid surgery, its benefit in thyroid surgery remains unclear. In the UK NICE was agnostic on the subject in 2008, stating that it was potentially helpful and...
Importance of face-to-face communication in clinical practice
Breakdowns in communication with patients who have difficulty in understanding, speaking or hearing may occur during a consultation. The authors of this paper studied the hearing-related breakdowns in communication especially amongst older adults with hearing impairment (HI) using conversational analysis...
Helicobacter pylori and chronic tonsillitis
Helicobacter pylori infection in the stomach has long been associated with chronic gastritis, duodenal and peptic ulceration and even gastric cancer. Whether laryngopharyngeal reflux (LPR) brings up these organisms and induces chronic tonsillitis is an interesting concept, which the authors...
Radiology and paediatric neck lumps
This is a comprehensive article examining the modalities available for children presenting with suspected congenital neck lumps. Each modality is explained in turn, with pros and cons highlighted, but also in the context of the emergency patient and the elective....
Drug eluting stent vs INCS for CRS
A prospective, randomised study from Finland to compare a drug eluting stent (DES) and intranasal corticosteroids (INCS) in 63 patients as assessed by SNOT-22, VAS, endoscopy, CT and rhinometry pre-treatment, at three and six months post treatment. Recruitment was over...
Which technique is better for turbinate reduction: surgical turbinoplasty or radiofrequency ablation?
Turbinate hypertrophy; radiofrequency; surgical turbinoplasty; visual analogue score
Dutch pharyngeal pouch surgery experience
A decade’s experience of pharyngeal pouch surgery was reported in this paper from Rotterdam. A total of 94 patients were analysed. The majority (80%) underwent an endoscopic approach, either with stapling or CO2 laser-assisted. Interestingly, 13 of 75 (14%) procedures...
Management of oral white patches with malignant potential
This paper focuses on a rare but aggressive form of leukoplakia with malignant potential and is an important reminder of the need for specialist management to those in allied specialties such as ENT that may initially be referred these oral...
It’s not just about academic education for teenagers with TBI
Research has shown that many traumatic brain injuries are sustained before the age of 25. This article aims to examine the need for speech and language support for students with traumatic brain injury (TBI) beyond the issues a student may...
Application of balloon dilatation in chronic eustachian tube dysfunction
Chronic eustachian tube dysfunction prevails in 1% of the adult population and can predispose to middle ear disease. There are subjective and objective features of this condition that can affect quality of life. The common methods to treat eustachian tube...
The effect of vertigo on sleep
The authors analysed data of 20,950 individuals who completed the balance and dizziness supplements of the ongoing NHIS survey in 2008. The survey used a strict algorithm to identify individuals reporting vestibular vertigo and information on sleep duration and a...
Can we tell the difference between benign recurrent vertigo, migraine and Menière’s disease?
I chose to review this article as it reminds us of the difficulties in diagnosing dizzy patients accurately and the significant crossover of symptoms between the diagnoses. Does Benign Recurrent Vertigo (BRV) even exist as a separate entity? BRV is...
