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Double layer graft in endoscopic tympanoplasty

This Turkish retrospective study looked at the success rates following endoscopic tympanoplasty using the double layer graft technique. This involves using a tragal cartilage and perichondrium composite graft and a separate perichondrial graft for closure of the perforation. The crescent...

Round window niche drilling with intratympanic for ISSHL. A new option for salvage?

This paper from China compares the technique of widening the round window via a posterior tympanotomy approach and steroid-soaked gelatin sponge with intratympanic steroids alone for salvage therapy in severe idiopathic sensorineural hearing loss. Salvage therapy was defined as patients...

Semantic fluency test to investigate deaf children

Semantic fluency task (SFT) is used to measure lexical organisation and executive function across the lifespan and requires participants to name examples from a particular semantic category in a specific period of time. Using this test, the authors investigated a...

Lack of early vocabulary growth in bilateral cochlear implant children

Studies indicate that children with unilateral implantation may have delayed vocabulary development for long periods of time even after implantation. This Finnish study attempted to find out whether bilateral cochlear implantation was associated with earlier vocabulary development. The authors analysed...

Single sided deafness and cochlear implants

Cochlear implants (CI) can restore hearing in the profoundly deaf ear. Risk/ benefit and cost considerations dictate strict criteria that must be met for patients to be eligible. People with single-sided deafness are not eligible to receive a cochlear implant...

Predicting speech recognition in adults with cochlear implants

This was a combined prospective and retrospective study from Belgium that looked at factors influencing speech recognition scores in quiet conditions (retrospectively) and speech reception threshold levels (SRT) in fixed noise conditions (prospectively) after cochlear implantation in postlingually deaf adults....

Day care stapes surgery

This paper reports on a proposed unblinded, randomised controlled trial in which the hearing outcomes after inpatient stapes surgery will be compared with those after day case stapes surgery. The study is currently in the recruitment stage and plans to...

What are the non-inflammatory causes of a conductive loss?

This retrospective study looked at patients with an intact tympanic membrane with non-inflammatory causes – i.e. otitis media and cholesteotoma. They document their findings based on exploratory tympanotomy. They operated depending on the findings with either a stapedectomy or a...

Auditory neuropathy spectrum disorder

This is a concise summary of auditory neuropathy and current knowledge of the disorder through review of a recently published article. The terminology of this hearing disorder implies the site of the lesion is neural; however the characteristic electrophysical signature...

Outcome measures for hearing loss

This short editorial explores some possible options in measurement of quality of care in audiology. We traditionally tend to use clinician-related outcomes in place of patient-reported outcome measures and so we could miss a wealth of data on the impact...