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How can we manage children with poor speech discrimination but with normal audiogram

We often come across children and young adults brought in for consultation for suspected hearing loss and having hearing difficulty in noisy backgrounds but who often have normal audiograms. Such patients are suspected to have auditory neuropathy. The term auditory...

Impaired vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) gain correlates with hearing loss in vestibular schwannoma

The lack of correlation between the size of vestibular schwannoma (VS) and degree of hearing loss and vestibular function tests is well known. In this retrospective study, the focus was on the correlation between VOR gain of semicircular canal function,...

What works better for type 3 tympanoplasty?

This is a systematic review comparing incus transposition (IT) and partial ossicular replacement prosthesis (PORP). There is a total of 14 articles, obtaining 1055 patients: 614 for the IT group and 441 for the PORP group. All included patients had...

Are we all in the matrix?

In the entirety of training and in further practice, we are instilled with the premise of patient-centred care and individualised management plans based on informed consent. The question in the new age of telehealth/e-health is how to mimic that personalisation...

Vestibular function preservation after minimally invasive paediatric cochlear implantation

This retrospective study analysed results in 24 paediatric patients with low-frequency residual hearing before and after minimally invasive cochlear implantation. The authors define minimally invasive cochlear implantation as a round window insertion of flexible Nucleus CI422, Nucleus CI522, MedEl Flex...

Does a labyrinthine fistula in cholesteatoma surgery lead to hearing loss?

Thirty-five patients with labyrinthine fistula related to cholesteatoma were studied retrospectively. All patients underwent CT scans and preoperative hearing tests 1-2 weeks prior to surgery (averaged at 0.5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 8 kHz). All 35 patients underwent mastoid surgery,...

Does head trauma as aetiology of deafness affect the outcomes of cochlear implantation?

Head trauma associated with temporal bone fractures is a well known aetiological factor for deafness. The literature assessing the outcomes of cochlear implantation in such cases is rather limited. In this paper, the authors compared the performance of implantees with...

Cochlear implantation in Ménière’s disease

This was a Belgian retrospective study of seven patients with Ménière’s disease who underwent cochlear implantation. All patients had bilateral severe to profound hearing loss and all met AAO-HNS criteria for Ménière’s disease. Follow-up for patients ranged from six months...

Tinnitus loudness and insomnia

Tinnitus may be very bothersome for its sufferers, in some cases leading to suicide. Therefore, it is extremely important to offer the best available treatment to people suffering from tinnitus. This study considered whether insomnia may be associated with the...

Effects of age on neuro-physiological processing of speech at brainstem level

Degenerative changes associated with ageing may affect processing of spectral and temporal cues in speech at cortical and subcortical levels, even though these individuals may have normal audiometric thresholds. These changes are more likely to be picked up by speech...

Speech audiometry tests in elderly patients with mild cognitive impairment

This paper caught my eye because, with our ageing population, mild cognitive impairment and dementia are a major, growing problem. We know that ageing causes a multitude of medical and social issues. So it seems wise to investigate the effects...