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Day care or admission for aesthetic nasal surgery?

Day-care surgery is gaining in popularity throughout the surgical specialities due to economical constraints and patient convenience. However this is not without risk and a careful procedure by procedure evaluation should be performed to prove the suitability of this type...

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...

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...

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...

Paediatric pituitary surgery - is it lagging behind?

Endoscopic sellar surgery, especially for adenomas, is a relatively safe, straightforward surgery with (mostly) reproducible results and few complications. However, the evolution of pituitary surgery was a long process, starting from open/transfrontal approaches all the way to transsphenoid to the...

Performing a labyrinthectomy

This article takes the reader through the two main approaches for a labyrinthectomy for intractable Meniere’s disease. These are the traditional trans-mastoid and the less well known trans-canal. They state that according to the House clinic, the selection criteria for...

Which is the best graft for myringoplasty?

This is a systematic review and meta-analysis of retrospective studies for type 1 tympanoplasty (myringoplasty) surgery comparing temporalis fascia and cartilage autograft materials for reconstruction. Inclusion criteria was patients with more than 50% perforated tympanic membrane with intact ossicular chain....

Paper patching for aural fullness

This Belgian prospective study reported on the effect of paper patching on aural fullness of unknown aetiology. It looked at 22 patients who complained of aural fullness without any middle ear pathology. The patients were divided into a treatment group...

Parental role in childhood speech disorder intervention

Several studies have indicated that parents play an effective role in the management of early communication disorders like stuttering and language delay in children, especially when they are supported by clinicians. This comprehensive review attempted to study published literature regarding...

SpeechEasy® for stuttering

In this article, the authors describe their experiences with an altered auditory feedback (AAF) device: SpeechEasy® during a random clinical trial. AAF has been reported in other laboratory studies to reduce stuttering events without influencing the rate, intensity or frequency...

Do intratympanic injections require local anaesthesia?

Intratympanic injections are becoming increasingly acceptable in the management of Meniere’s disease, tinnitus and sudden hearing loss. This is because they avoid the need for hospitalisation and can be performed as low-cost outpatient procedures. It is traditional to freeze the...