Search

Robotic head and neck surgery: current state of the art and future innovations

Technology and innovation has provided modern head and neck surgeons with successive generations of robotic surgical systems, fibre-optic lasers, and novel tools which have ushered in a new era of minimally invasive surgery for tumours of the pharynx and larynx....

Endoscopic ear surgery in children

The benefits of endoscopes in otologic surgery, which have become increasingly widely appreciated in recent years, are very well suited to the management of paediatric middle ear disease. Although one might imagine that the smaller ear canal of a child...

Endoscopic middle ear surgery for cholesteatoma treatment

A critical question when any new technique is proposed is ‘does it work?’ In this article Daniele Marchioni and Davide Soloperto discuss the success rates of endoscopic ear surgery for cholesteatoma. Introduction Surgical management of cholesteatoma is still a controversial...

Timing of surgery in chronic rhinosinusitis: does it matter?

While many patients with chronic rhinosinusitis respond to medical treatment, some do not. The next step for these patients is surgery, but how soon should this be offered? Sooner rather than later seems to be the answer, as Claire Hopkins...

Sniffing out the evidence – COVID-19 and loss of sense of smell and taste

Louis Pasteur once observed: “In the fields of observation chance favors only the prepared mind.” Professor Hopkins was certainly prepared when a few anecdotes of smell problems started to accumulate early in the pandemic’s course. Post-viral olfactory loss is nothing...

Olfaction in CRS

Conventional teaching tells us that hyposmia in chronic rhinosinusitis is due to mechanical obstruction of the olfactory cleft. But it might be that the story is slightly more complicated than that. Olfactory dysfunction is a common feature of chronic rhinosinusitis...

Measuring the pitch and loudness of tinnitus

Matching the characteristics of tinnitus Many researchers and clinicians have explored the subjective nature of tinnitus by asking people with tinnitus to adjust a sound so that it matches their tinnitus in some way. This can be useful both for...

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...

Auditory brainstem implant results in adults and children

Background The auditory brainstem implant (ABI) has been developed from cochlear implant (CI) technology and is indicated for people who have anatomical abnormalities of the cochlea or dysfunction of the auditory nerve. The majority of people who have received an...

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...

Unravelling the mystery of hyperacusis with pain

When a person says that sound causes them pain, how can we understand this, and determine what processes are involved? Bryan Pollard navigates us through what is presently known. Pain has long been underrepresented – and often, completely overlooked –...

Internet-based cognitive behavioural therapy for adults with tinnitus

Tinnitus remains one of the most prevalent and distressing audiological symptoms. Although specialist tinnitus services are in high demand, geographical and service constraints result in limited access to these services. Internet-based cognitive behavioural therapy (ICBT) has been developed to provide...