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Mobile phones to assess productivity in rhinitis
Uncontrolled and moderate to severe allergic rhinitis (AR) has significant negative impact on work productivity. Work Productivity and Activity Impairment Allergic Specific Questionnaire (WPAI:AS) used to measure that impact showed this. Work productivity seems to improve when AR is treated....
McIsaac scores in tonsillitis
Acute tonsillitis is usually caused by a viral infection, however often antibiotics are prescribed without a confirmed diagnosis of a bacterial infection. The Modified Centor (McIsaac) criteria, which include fever (>38°c), tonsillar exudate, no cough, anterior cervical lymphadenitis and age,...
The effect of adenotonsillectomy on the immune system
Parents often ask about the effect of adenotonsillectomy on the immune system, with concerns that the child may be prone to more infections postoperatively due to the absence of immune tissue. This Belgian literature review looked at the local and...
Fluorescein use during parotidectomy
The authors of this study retrospectively reviewed the surgical charts of seven patients who underwent parotidectomy for tumour resection. In all these patients, Fluorescein sodium was used to enhance the contrast between parotid tumour tissue and the facial nerve. Using...
Tongue twisters to evaluate speech disorders
This interesting study compared errors in tongue twisters produced by adult patients with dysarthria with those produced by age-matched healthy controls. Audio recordings of all patients while they were vocalising tongue twisters were studied. The authors marked one word prominently...
Risk factors in free flap failure
This is a retrospective analysis from China of 881 free flaps over nearly four years, 49 of which were ‘taken back’, 26 of which were lost, giving a 97% success rate. The commonest cause of flap failure was venous thrombosis....
Mindfulness meditation versus relaxation therapy for tinnitus
Tinnitus, defined by McFadden as “a conscious experience of sound that originates in the head of its owner, without an external acoustic source”, has a high prevalence and variable psychological impact. It results from maladaptation of the brain to a...
Management of stage IV pharyngolaryngeal lesions
This is a retrospective study of 63 patients presenting with stage four laryngeal and/or hypopharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma. The aim was to define the factors influencing the oncological and functional outcomes of the patients. All patients had T4 lesions with...
Importance of face-to-face communication in clinical practice
Breakdowns in communication with patients who have difficulty in understanding, speaking or hearing may occur during a consultation. The authors of this paper studied the hearing-related breakdowns in communication especially amongst older adults with hearing impairment (HI) using conversational analysis...
Helicobacter pylori and chronic tonsillitis
Helicobacter pylori infection in the stomach has long been associated with chronic gastritis, duodenal and peptic ulceration and even gastric cancer. Whether laryngopharyngeal reflux (LPR) brings up these organisms and induces chronic tonsillitis is an interesting concept, which the authors...
Radiology and paediatric neck lumps
This is a comprehensive article examining the modalities available for children presenting with suspected congenital neck lumps. Each modality is explained in turn, with pros and cons highlighted, but also in the context of the emergency patient and the elective....
