Journal Reviews
The effect of adenotonsillectomy on the immune system
Parents often ask about the effect of adenotonsillectomy on the immune system, with concerns that the child may be prone to more infections postoperatively due to the absence of immune tissue. This Belgian literature review looked at the local and...
Fluorescein use during parotidectomy
The authors of this study retrospectively reviewed the surgical charts of seven patients who underwent parotidectomy for tumour resection. In all these patients, Fluorescein sodium was used to enhance the contrast between parotid tumour tissue and the facial nerve. Using...
Balloon Eustachian tuboplasty
Eustachian tube dysfunction is a common condition, which is unfortunately lacking an effective treatment. This small study demonstrated the effectiveness of balloon Eustachian tuboplasty in a district hospital setting. It has been in use since 2010 and is beginning to...
The role of imaging in differentiating rare temporal bone neoplasms
This paper provides a useful tool to assist in determining the diagnosis of benign neoplasms of the temporal bone using readily available imaging modalities. Specifically, this group have looked at chondrosarcoma, an expansile hypermetabolic mass lesion usually found in the...
Metaplasia of the concave septum
This group conducted a one year prospective study and sampled mucosa from 42 randomly selected patients with septal deviation at a single centre. They found significantly higher rate of squamous metaplasia and lymphocytic infiltration in septal mucosa on the concave...
Malignant change of pleomorphic adenoma
Pleomorphic adenoma is the most common salivary gland tumour. The potential to undergo malignant transformation is rare but well described. The authors of this article present a case report of metastasis where the preceding submandibular gland pleomorphic adenoma preserves its...
British English speech test for occupational hearing assessment
It is very important to properly assess occupational fitness for several occupations such as police officer, military personnel or fire fighter. The aim of this study was to develop a British English speech in noise (SiN) test as a tool...
Self-report of hearing aids handling difficulties
The authors have raised an interesting subject concerning the ability of customers to self-assess their hearing aid handling skills. Previous studies showed that 96% of customers when asked if they are able to manage their hearing aids answered ‘yes’. However,...
Tongue twisters to evaluate speech disorders
This interesting study compared errors in tongue twisters produced by adult patients with dysarthria with those produced by age-matched healthy controls. Audio recordings of all patients while they were vocalising tongue twisters were studied. The authors marked one word prominently...
Relationship between early language delays and long-term outcomes
This epidemiological study from Australia, spanning 16 years, explores the influence of early language delays over time on outcomes in affected adults. Based on vocabulary skills at age five, the study population was classified into four groups: persistently good, persistently...
Risk factors in free flap failure
This is a retrospective analysis from China of 881 free flaps over nearly four years, 49 of which were ‘taken back’, 26 of which were lost, giving a 97% success rate. The commonest cause of flap failure was venous thrombosis....
Keep the condyle if you can
This is a study of 41 patients who underwent benign tumour resection and reconstruction over a four year period. Patients fell into three groups; condyle preserved, condyle sacrificed, condyle frozen in combination with a DCIA free flap. Following this, they...
