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Machine learning and the future of otolaryngology

If you are over 30 years of age, you have witnessed a technology revolution that has grossly affected how we live: computers have come from being an oddity to an everyday feature in our households and places of work; the...

Promoting human rights of deaf communities in low-resource settings

Stigma and misconceptions about deafness are serious impediments for many deaf people to realise rights and potential in some of the most challenging situations globally. Around 430 million people are estimated to live with moderate or higher levels of hearing...

Mobile technologies to support global ear and hearing care

By combining mobile technology with artificial intelligence, more people can access ear and hearing care. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that worldwide, nearly half a billion people have moderate or worse hearing loss [1]. The vast majority of people...

Intratympanic steroids in Ménière's disease: what’s the evidence?

The days of drastic surgery for Ménière's disease are long gone. We know that intratympanic injections can deliver high doses of medication to the inner ear with minimal discomfort and minimal risk. But how do we choose from the myriad...

Selecting and optimising hearing aids for tinnitus benefit: a rough guide

Hearing aids have a relatively long history as tinnitus treatment tools. Saltzman and Ersner reported success in suppressing tinnitus with simple hearing aids in a number of cases as early as 1947 [1]. In an early comprehensive approach to tinnitus...

Cochlear implant referral: how can we do better?

Considerable progress has been made over the last few years in improving access to cochlear implantation (CI) in the UK for children and adults with severe to profound deafness. But we are still not treating children early enough, and we...

Combined use of a hearing aid and a cochlear implant: a case study

When multi-channel cochlear implants (CIs) were first introduced in the 1980s, their use was restricted to people who derived no benefit from conventional amplification. Over the past three decades, however, the criteria for CIs has been relaxed considerably, and it...

Clinical utility and practical interpretation of the video head impulse test

The head impulse test (HIT) is an essential bedside test to detect peripheral vestibular deficits. The video head impulse test (vHIT) is a new tool quantifying the HIT. In this article Maria Heuberger and colleagues point out the clinical utility...

Cytomegalovirus (CMV) and the vestibular system: a case study

This team of audiologists from Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Centre discuss an eight year old with congenital CMV, a neonatal infection which is usually asymptomatic, and provide guidance on how to recognise the signs in the paediatric population, and screen...

Audiovestibular findings in children with enlarged vestibular aqueduct

Enlarged vestibular aqueduct is reported to affect up to 15% of the paediatric population with sensorineural hearing loss. Devin McCaslin and Bridget Smith provide an up-to-date overview of the mechanisms and clinical symptoms underlying the condition and share some of...

What’s new in auditory processing?

Auditory processing disorder (APD) has had a controversial history, stemming mainly from lack of scientific rigor and accepted clinical definition. That situation is now changing. Driven by the huge number of people with unaddressed listening difficulties, basic discoveries in neuroscience,...