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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...

When you regret an implant!

Cochlear implants (CIs) offer a solution to hearing loss not helped by conventional hearing aids. CIs help in improving speech recognition scores. While significant, it is not sufficient to provide satisfaction in some implantees. Alignment between expectations and realistic outcomes...

Newborn sensorineural hearing loss – what is the incidence?

In the last two decades, the introduction of newborn screening for hearing loss has dramatically lowered the average age of newborn hearing loss diagnosis to around two to three months of age. The benefits of early diagnosis are manifold, enabling...

COVID-19 and dysphagia in critically ill patients: a reflection of some findings

Dysphagia was a common occurrence in patients admitted to intensive care units (ITU) during the pandemic. This paper explores data from 26 ITUs over 12 months during 2020-2021. Findings from 235 patients admitted with Delta and subsequent Covid variants who...

How satisfying can a rhinoplasty be?

Rhinoplasty has seen an exponential rise in its uptake over the last few decades globally, offering patients a way to surgically correct the external appearance of the nose with the aim to improve cosmesis. Whilst the success of the procedure...

What can we tell about swallow physiology from a bedside clinical assessment?

Knowledge about swallowing physiology has greatly increased with the use of instrumental assessments such as videofluoroscopy (VFS). The authors of this paper performed an analysis of data obtained from 60 stroke patients who were assessed via a clinical swallow examination...

Effectiveness of oral pressure therapy in obstructive sleep apnoea: a systematic analysis

Oral pressure therapy (OPT) is a relatively new form of therapy for obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA). Paradoxically it seems to work even though it creates a vacuum in the oral cavity as opposed to the gold standard of continuous positive...

Hypoglossal stimulation for OSA

Continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) is a highly effective treatment for moderate-to-severe obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA), but suffers significantly from poor patient adherence. This paper reports the three-year outcomes of a prospective multicentre cohort study examining the effect of hypoglossal...

Tele-audiometry – a ShoeBOX solution

Access to hearing assessment is a global challenge. In relation to the global burden of hearing loss World Health Organisation’s (WHO’s) recent estimate (2013) is that 360 million people in the world have disabling hearing impairment. Two-thirds of these people...

In conversation with Professor John Fenton

John Fenton, Republic of Ireland, has recently been appointed President of the Union Européene Des Médicins Spécialistes (UEMS) ORL or European Union of Medical Specialists ORL Section. We caught up with him to find out a little more about his...

What’s in a name?

Kate Granger is a doctor and the founder of the #hellomynameis campaign; she is also a cancer patient. In this article she explains why she started the campaign, and why patient-centred care starts with an introduction. Chris and me the...

Leadership reflections

For the past year, Lisa Vaughan Christensen has been the President of the American Academy of Audiology. In this article, she shares the journey that led her to this position and offers some brilliant advice to anyone interested in leadership....