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What blood tests should be requested to investigate vocal cord paralysis?

Patients who are discovered to have a vocal cord palsy with no obvious cause on history or examination routinely undergo investigations to exclude an underlying pathology. Cross-sectional imaging of the relevant recurrent laryngeal nerve is required, but considerable variability has...

A comparison of same day with staged bilateral cartilage graft tympanoplasty for tubotympanic CSOM

This randomised, controlled study compares the tympanoplasty outcomes in two groups of patients: one undergoing bilateral tympanoplasty on the same day (18 patients, 36 ears) and the other having the same procedure done on different days, with a gap of...

‘What was I talking about?’ Memory and discourse in language impairment

This article discusses the function of the three theoretical components of working memory and their influence on discourse (the phonological assembly, the visuo-spatial sketchpad and the episodic buffer). The authors emphasise that the buffer is the key conceptual component responsible...

Risk of malignancy in non-diagnostic thyroid FNACs

Thyroid nodules are present in between 21-68% of the general population. The evaluation of these nodules to exclude thyroid carcinoma includes fine-needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) and a non-diagnostic cytology result occurs between 8-20% of the time. This retrospective cohort study...

Facial filler danger zones

Non-surgical facial rejuvenation techniques are increasing and are now undertaken by plastic, maxillofacial and ENT surgeons as well as non-surgeon technicians in the private sector. Although the technique of using fillers is less invasive than surgical options, it is not...

Voice impairment following spinal cord injury

Patients with cervical spinal cord injury face several clinical problems. One of the problems is voice impairment secondary to poor respiratory support. Their syllables per breath, vocal intensity and vocal quality are impaired. This paper studied the impact of the...

Lateral wall augmentation for patulous eustachian tube

The problem more commonly attributed to the eustachian tube is lack of its patency rather than it being unduly patulous. This lesser recognised condition is due to loss of peritubal fat volume resulting in concavity of the lateral wall and...

CT chest surveillance for oral cancer patients

Computed tomography (CT) imaging of the chest is performed as part of the assessment of patients with oral cancer to exclude pulmonary metastasis or synchronous cancer. This process is integral to staging of the disease. In some cases, non-specific pulmonary...

How the world sees facial palsy patients

This paper from Australia gives an insightful perspective on the impact of facial paralysis on patients, and may explain the well-documented poor quality of life scores in this patient group, particularly those ‘successfully reconstructed’ with surgery. It explores how the...

A rare superior tongue tie

The authors present a very rare case of ankyloglossia superior syndrome: first described in 1911 but with only 14 case reports in English literature it was of sufficient interest to discuss the aetiology, classification and management. As the palatal shelves...

Learning curve for sialendoscopy

Sialendoscopy represents a minimally invasive technique that permits direct salivary tree visualisation and treatment using endoscopic techniques. Previous studies have shown that it is an efficacious, safe and potentially gland preserving method to treat major salivary gland disease. However, it...

Evidence based outcomes for canal wall up, canal wall down and subsequent canal wall reconstruction for primary cholesteatoma

There has been a long standing controversy over whether to treat primary cholesteatoma with open or closed technique. The general consensus is that limited disease can be treated with closed technique whereas the canal wall down approach helps reduce recidivism...