Journal Reviews
To drain or not to drain
These two separate papers neatly tie together the same ideas. The first, a retrospective study of 107 patients and 116 procedures over a 10-year period who underwent a CSF leak repair, 82.2% without a lumbar drain and 17.8% with. The...
Microsurgical trainees to avoid strenuous exercises?
It is commonly believed among microsurgeons that over-exertion can impair microsurgical performance. The authors aimed to investigate if they could prove this theory and compared the performance of medical students, postgraduate trainees and expert controls who were microsurgery tutors. A...
Factors determining success of adenotonsillectomy in paediatric obstructive sleep apnoea
Patient selection is important for any successful surgical procedure. Adenotonsillectomy for obstructive sleep apnoea secondary to adenotonsillar hypertrophy is no exception. This retrospective Taiwanese study attempts to find preoperative factors that have a positive influence for this commonly performed operation....
IV dexamethasone versus LA infiltration during paediatric tonsillectomy
Postoperative nausea and vomiting following tonsillectomy is important to control for improved oral intake and satisfaction following surgery. Optimal management is still debated. This team from Beirut conducted a randomised double blind clinical trial comparing the effect of intravenous dexamethasone...
Hearing provides cues for the maintenance of balance
It is well known that balance relies on the integration of vestibular, visual and proprioceptive cues. However not much mention or attention has been given to the importance of auditory cues for balance maintenance. The authors set up experiments to...
Extrapolating lessons from vestibular schwannoma management
This paper presents a delightfully simple and sensible hypothesis for the management of benign schwannomas in the head and neck region. They have taken the approach used for the management of vestibular schwannomas and used the same principles to assess...
Anticoagulated patients and epistaxis
This systematic review looks at the increasing complexity in this space as anti-thrombotics become more sophisticated and move away from the more well understood management of warfarinised patients. After a thorough search, 29 papers were found to be relevant and...
Saline irrigation in CRSwNP after surgery
This article, largely from Germany, aims to prove the effectiveness of nasal saline irrigation in postoperative patients with CRS with nasal polyps. A prospective, single blinded randomised trial was designed with an irrigation and non-irrigation arm. Patients who underwent sinonasal...
Remembering the first word first or the last word first: what does this mean about the interaction between language and short term memory?
This article reviews theories of how verbal short term memory (STM) interacts with other language functions and thus how semantics or phonology of target items can influence what individuals remember. The authors describe examples from the research literature that have...
Sinus surgery effects on asthma patients
Chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) and asthma are related. The authors identified a gap in the literature and designed this study with a relatively large sample size of 86 patients. They included patients with comorbid asthma and CRS with or without polyps...
3D is the future?
This is an interesting take on yet another way to incorporate modern technology into medical practice, and the novel use of a 3D printer to create a custom-made prosthesis for large and irregular nasal septal perforations. These prostheses have the...
5-cm incision for neck dissection and free flap reconstruction
Patients with oral cavity squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) will commonly require neck dissection as it is associated with a higher rate of overall and disease free survival. Free flap reconstruction of the defect following surgical resection is considered the gold...
