Journal Reviews
Video otoscopy
The COVID-19 pandemic and challenges in offering health services at the time showed how useful telehealth services can be. One of the undoubted benefits of video otoscopy is that both images and recordings can be sent to specialists for assessments....
Correlation between middle ear and mastoid volumes with results of type 1 paediatric tympanoplasty
This is a retrospective study of 45 paediatric patients, aged between eight and 18 years, who underwent Type 1 cartilage graft tympanoplasty using conchal cartilage. Middle ear and mastoid volumes of these children were correlated with anatomical and functional outcomes...
Impact of COVID-19 on ear surgeries
The authors review the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the practice of ear surgeries in this article. The pandemic has changed how we practise medicine and introduced new guidelines to ensure safety of healthcare personnel. Studies have demonstrated COVID-19...
A comparison between trainee and trainer outcomes in mastoid surgery
In this era where training faces restrictions due to theatre time, fewer sessions available to trainees and requirements of consultant-led and consultant-delivered services, one unit confirmed that myringoplasties given to trainees reduced from 34.2% to 16%. This study compares outcomes...
Role of imaging in unilateral sensorineural hearing loss
Recent understanding of the significance of unilateral hearing loss in children for language development calls for extensive investigations and early rehabilitation. This retrospective study of 90 children with unilateral hearing loss with high resolution CT scans and MRI revealed that...
Two reliable endoscopic myringoplasty techniques for anterior tympanic membrane perforations
Difficulties that arise in closing anterior perforations in the tympanic membrane are due to a narrow isthmus of the external auditory canal and an anterior wall bulge which obscures the most anterior part of the tympanic membrane. The conventional microscopic...
Is canal wall down with obliteration a useful compromise between canal wall up procedure and open mastoid cavities?
Controversy has raged for many years between open mastoid cavity procedures and canal wall up techniques in terms of postoperative recidivism and ear discharge. It is generally believed that canal wall up procedures can miss hidden cholesteatoma but preserve useful...
How effective are our two-week-wait guidelines in picking up head and neck cancer?
With a 30% increase in the incidence of head and neck cancer since 1999 in the UK, it is important that the two-week wait referral guidelines safely encompass all risk factors but also render these urgent referrals based on signs...
Does surgery work for acquired stenosis of the ear canal in the long term?
The surgical treatment of acquired post-inflammatory atresia of the external auditory canal (EAC), namely meatoplasty, is challenging with variable long-term outcome. This study looked at the clinical, audiological data, long-term outcome and patient satisfaction after performing meatoplasty. Sixteen patients were...
Multisystem pathology in refractory otitis media with effusion
Recurrent middle ear effusion is a common problem and so is rhinosinusitis with polyposis. It is not often thought that the problem could be linked to multisystem pathology, such as eosinophilic granulomatous with polyposis. Therefore, repeated grommet insertions and surgical...
Revising pinna embryology and anatomy
This forms an introductory article for a group of papers discussing the reconstruction of the pinna. It is a succinct yet adequately detailed article that all of us, at whatever stage of our careers should endeavour to read, as it...
