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2371 results found

Less pain more gain: impact of prophylactic gabapentin on swallowing outcomes in head and neck cancer patients undergoing radiation treatment

Patients planned for chemoradiation to the head and neck are usually advised to expect some pain and soreness during their treatment and that pain relief will be offered as and when it is required. Uncontrolled pain and mucositis affect oral...

Nasal nitric oxide – an inflammatory marker in paediatric allergic rhinitis?

Nasal nitric oxide (nNO) is mainly produced in the paranasal sinus mucosa and was shown in some studies to have increased expression in allergic rhinitis (AR). Although it represents a potential non-invasive tool for AR measurement, there remains no consensus...

Long-term swallowing function in bilateral vocal cord immobility

Vocal cord immobility is the second most common abnormality of the larynx in the paediatric population. The team from New York aimed to characterise the long-term swallowing function in a cohort of patients with bilateral vocal cord immobility over a...

Vestibular paroxysmia, diagnostic controversy clarified?

Historically, the cause of vestibular paroxysmia (VP) had been attributed to neurovascular compression of the eighth cranial despite the observation that such compression is very common in asymptomatic subjects. This paper, part of International Classification of Vestibular Disorders (ICVD) by...

Anterolateral thigh cutaneous flap or radial forearm free flap for tongue defect reconstruction?

Free flap reconstruction is the gold standard in tongue reconstruction, aiming to restore function such as swallowing, cosmesis and speech. The anterolateral thigh cutaneous flap and the radial forearm free flap are among the most popular free flaps used for...

Using SNOT-22 to predict revision sinus cases

A simple way of predicting which patients will require revision endoscopic surgery does not yet exist. This study, which is a prospective, longitudinal cohort study, part of the UK national audit, aims to predict this by using a relatively simple,...

Snap: do voice patients’ self-ratings match the professionals or the machines?

Self-rating by people with voice disorders and perceptual assessments by speech and language therapists are generally quicker and cheaper than acoustic voice analysis. Reports, with small sample sizes and mixed participant groups, on whether these measures are associated have demonstrated...

Smoking causes cancer – so what’s new?

You may well ask what is the novel value of a paper looking at smoking habits in patients with confirmed head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC), but this paper highlights some pertinent points for clinical practice in the current...

Personal music systems are causing hearing loss

Sitting next to a teenager on a train with their iPod turned up loud enough for the entire carriage to hear is annoying, most will agree. Perhaps I might educate them about the risks of ‘music’ (if you can call...

Cystic fibrosis – sinus surgery delays chronic Gram-negative lung infection

This prospective clinical follow-up study is of 106 patients with cystic fibrosis in Copenhagen. Morbidity and mortality in CF are significantly associated with pulmonary colonisation and infection, usually with Gram-negative bacteria. Initially this can be well treated with antibiotics until...

Marshmallows for swallowing assessments!

The complaint of ‘food sticking in my throat’ is one many of us will have heard several times in clinical practice. The authors of this study report the prevalence of this symptom to be between 5-8% in the general population...

Radiation-induced dysphagia in head and neck cancer

This is a helpful reference paper that provides an overview of the biomolecular effects of radiation on the tissues of the upper aero-digestive tract. The authors explain that radiation injuries occur in a repetitive and accruing manner over the duration...