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Telepractice in COVID-19 and beyond

COVID-19 has suddenly forced health professionals to switch from face-to-face to remote video conferencing to deliver many or most of their services. This article considers the current state of this service delivery model (also called telepractice) for speech and language...

Combination PPI and intralesional steroid treatment for recurrent laryngeal granuloma

The existence of a wide range of treatments for recurrent laryngeal granulomas (repeat surgery, high-dose proton pump inhibitor (PPIs), surgery with botulinum toxin injection, botulinum toxin injection alone, etc) is a testament to the refractory nature of this condition, with...

Simple preoperative tests predicting outcomes for ESS patients?

We are all familiar with patients suffering extensive nasal polyps who relapse all to soon after careful and thorough endoscopic sinus surgery (ESS). This paper looks to answer whether we can predict which patients will do well, and which less...

Can we get some satisfaction (in aphasia therapy)?

Patient satisfaction is associated with improved health outcomes, yet using surveys to collate information on satisfaction is limited by the types of questions asked. Satisfaction remains a broad concept but asking respondents more open questions allows service users to define...

Otosclerosis - to scan or not to scan?

In an era of insidiously reducing thresholds for investigating patients, Maxwell and colleagues pose an important question: is high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT) prior to stapes surgery for otosclerosis worthwhile? Their practice typically considers HRCT for cases of suspected otosclerosis presenting...

Future practice: tele-rehabilitation in speech and language therapy

It is known that our population is ageing, resulting in an increase in the number of people living with progressive neurological conditions such as Parkinson’s disease. Health services endeavour to deliver specialist and personalised care to all these people, often...

How has management and outcomes of necrotising otitis externa changed over the past decade?

Necrotising otitis externa (NOE) remains a challenging condition for ENT departments, particularly with the increased prevalence of diabetes mellitus (DM) in the general population. There is no international consensus on treatment, although many institutions now have local guidelines drawn up...

Should we be doing earlier MRIs in sudden sensorineural hearing loss?

There is recognised variation between ENT departments in exact imaging protocols for the workup of idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss (ISSNHL) but a routine MRI to exclude retrocochlear pathology is standard, usually following immediate treatment with oral +/- intratympanic steroids....

Effects of coronavirus pandemic on presentation of head and neck cancer patients

The COVID-19 pandemic caused unprecedented disruption of NHS services. This was compounded by patients’ reluctance to attend hospitals at that time. How this affected the presentation of patients with head and neck cancer is the subject of this study. Head...

Sudden sensorineural hearing loss – who will get better?

Idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss (ISSNHL) is a rare but potentially devastating condition. For patients presenting with this condition, prognosis is of paramount importance. Wu et al begin to address this issue by retrospectively studying 17 potential prognostic factors for...

Extracapsular dissection alone for low-grade malignancies of the parotid gland – oncologically sound?

The general treatment strategy advocated for a primary carcinoma of the parotid gland is surgical resection +/- adjuvant radiotherapy. A selective neck dissection is usually recommended in all cases of parotid malignancies, except for small, low-grade tumours. In this paper,...