Journal Reviews
Factors affecting compliance of follow-up of patients with chronic otitis media
Patients with retraction pockets and small cholesteatomas need good surveillance as well as those surgically treated for cholesteatomas. This is particularly important in closed techniques where a second look or diffusion weighted MRI can pick up any recurrence or residual...
Using cVEMPs to distinguish between vestibular migraine and from Ménière’s
Vestibular migraine (VM) and Ménière’s disease (MD) could overlap or mimic each other. Since the use of cVEMPs became routine, attempts have been made by researchers to explore its clinical utility in these two conditions. In this prospective study, the...
Persistent dysphonia due to cricothyroid muscle dystonia – should we be requesting laryngeal EMGs for non-resolving ‘functional’ dysphonia?
This article is an interesting report of a case of persistent voice problems affecting a 43-year-old physician that significantly compromised her ability to converse and communicate at work. Specifically, she had a fluctuating voice quality that would ‘choke off’, combined...
High definition tractography to identify cranial nerves
It has always been challenging to visualise cranial nerves on traditional imaging as the cranial nerves have a fine structure and complex anatomy. This is especially true regarding the cochlear nerve. In congenitally hearing impaired children, the visualisation of the...
Do endonasal approaches for meningiomas have more CSF leaks?
Rarely, patients presenting to the ENT surgeon with anosmia may have an anterior skull base neoplasm such as a meningioma. Historically, the traditional approaches have focused on several transcranial, external routes, including the pterional craniotomy, and the subfrontal craniotomy. The...
Carotid paragangliomas and their management
Paragangliomas in the head and neck are most frequently associated with the carotid artery, classically at its bifurcation and splaying the internal and external vessels. Despite their commonality at this site, large studies of these rare tumours are still lacking...
Preoperative risk factors: when do you need to refer to the haematologist?
It is essential that clinicians are able to identify and assess which patients are in the high risk category for bleeding during ENT surgery. A full history, including medications, herbal remedies taken, any other medical co-morbidities and family history of...
New MRI technique assesses treatment response in skull base osteomyelitis
This paper describes another useful imaging technique to monitor Necrotising Otitis Externa (NOE). Echoplanar diffusion weighted magnetic resonance (DW MR) shows high signal on the ‘ADC map’ with active disease and this reduces in signal intensity as symptoms improve. This...
Safety of outpatient thyroid and parathyroid surgery
This study examined the safety and outcomes of matched groups of patients, undergoing either inpatient thyroid / parathyroid surgery or being discharged within eight hours of surgery. There were 2,362 patients in each group who were matched by a ‘propensity...
Is Dymista® useful for paediatric allergic rhinitis?
Allergic rhinitis (AR) affects up to 14.6% of the paediatric population. Whilst a recent Cochrane review has considered the evidence for intranasal corticosteroids as `weak and unreliable’ in paediatric AR, this product is a novel formulation combining Fluticasone and Azelastine...
Steroids pre-FESS
This meta-analysis and systematic review from the Netherlands and the UK aims to answer the question of whether corticosteroids inhaled and / or taken orally are beneficial to patients with chronic rhinosinusitis undergoing functional endoscopic sinus surgery. Refreshingly 18 RCTs...
Outcome of TORS to tongue base and epiglottis in patients with OSA intolerant of conventional treatment
The use of transoral robotic surgery (TORS) in ENT is rather controversial, but the use of robotic surgery for obstructive sleep apneoa (OSA), makes it doubly so. Previous studies on TORS in OSA have been performed with other types of...
