The American Academy of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery Foundation’s ‘Clinical Practice Guideline: Tympanostomy Tubes in Children (Update)’ has been recently published - an update of the original 2013 guideline. This article forms an executive summary to accompany the full guideline....
The migration of Filipino audiologists and otolaryngologists abroad is worsening the shortage of hearing specialists. Improving local conditions is vital to retaining talent. As ear and hearing healthcare professionals practising in the Philippines, we have seen the struggle in keeping...
Liberia is a country located on the West African coast bordered by Guinea, Sierra Leone and the Ivory Coast. Founded in 1821, it is Africa’s oldest modern republic and was established on land acquired for freed US slaves by the...
This story is dedicated to my dear friend and much-missed colleague, Heinz Stammberger, with whom some of these moments were shared (or endured). Having used a rigid endoscope in my postgrad thesis in the early 1980s to show that the...
Learning how to interpret a CT scan of the temporal bones can be a daunting task, especially for a head and neck surgeon like me! However, to make life easier, the authors have devised a useful system to help cover...
In this article, taken from his blog, ENT surgeon John McGarva reminds us that while we can’t fix everything, we may still be able to help. It was a long time ago. I was a scarily young Houseman, barely 22,...
Decreased sound tolerance is a common audiologic complaint. Unlike the classic characteristics of hyperacusis whereby a patient is sensitive to the frequency or volume of a sound, misophonia is a strong emotional and psychological reaction to a sound with a...
This November, Professor Simon Lloyd takes over from Patrick Axon as Otology Section President of the Royal Society of Medicine, and Professor Vin Paleri takes over from Michelle Wyatt as President of the Laryngology and Rhinology Section. Both incoming presidents share highlights from their programmes for the forthcoming year.
The techniques for delivering drugs to the inner ear system are evolving. Jeffrey Harris considers the myths, the facts and the potential for drug delivery innovations and how they can improve tomorrow’s hearing outcomes. The inner ear’s delicate membranous structure,...
Lufunda Lukama and Matthew Clark. Lufunda Lukama is an ENT surgeon in Zambia. In a country of 19.6 million, he is one of five such specialists. It is not difficult to see the problem that he, and the country as...
Matthew Cherko, Consultant Laryngologist, Royal Berkshire Hospital, Reading. It was a historic day when the highly anticipated inaugural joint meeting between the British Laryngological Association (BLA) and the Union of the European Phoniatricians (UEP) took place in London. In a...
These two animal studies report on potential new applications for intra-tympanic OTO-104, a slow-release hydrogel formulation of dexamethasone that is currently being used in a Europe-wide randomised trial for Ménière’s disease. In the first paper, guinea pigs were given a...