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Four (more) ways to reduce turbinates

Setting aside the issue of when/if to reduce inferior turbinates, the issue of how to reduce turbinates is a never-ending story. This edition of rhinology carries two articles looking at this subject, both prospective randomised trials comparing two different methods...

Head injury and prolonged bed rest, but not inner ear disease, predict poorer outcome after Epley manoeuvre in posterior semicircular canal benign paroxysmal positional vertgo (P-BPPV)

This Japanese study included 197 patients with P-BPPV treated over a two and a half year period. The vast majority had idiopathic BPPV (n=157). The remaining 40 had secondary BPPV, eight following head trauma, 14 due to prolonged bed rest...

An alternative device for obstructive sleep apnoea

Continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) is the first-line treatment for obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA), primarily due to the vast amount of short-term evidence in the medical literature it has accrued. The enduring obstacle to CPAP from becoming a treatment option...

Preoperative prediction of pain outcomes in patients with trigeminal neuralgia

The authors of this retrospective study have developed a preoperative trigeminal neuralgia (TN) grading system for the preoperative prediction of long-term pain relief after microvascular decompression (MVD). Patients who had become refractory to or developed toxicity to carbamazepine or oxycarbamazepine...

Publishing - a predictor of an academic career in ENT?

Achieving a publication as a medical student renders ENT trainees six times more likely to publish again during postgraduate surgical training. But how does this correlate with subsequent subspecialty fellowship training and a career in academia? Johnson et al examined...

Age is not an issue in sinus surgery

We have an increasingly aged population, and hence older and older patients are presenting with sinonasal issues and the potential need for endoscopic sinus surgery (ESS). The authors sought to identify if older patients (age >70) have more complications post...

Role of maxillary sinus irrigation as an adjuvant to current management of chronic rhinusitis without polyposis

Several decades have passed since irrigation of maxillary sinuses generally became a treatment of the past. A more recent concept of biofilms may have evoked new interest in this past procedure, fraught with its own issues. In this study, the...

Does pollution worsen inflammatory nasal problems?

This ambitious study, conducted over a period of four years, assessed 27,863 patients and compared levels of allergic rhinitis (AR) or chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) with the levels of air pollution recorded, as assessed by levels of particulate matter (PM10). They...

Relationship between high resolution radiological features of the otic capsuleand audiometric parameters in patients with otscerosis

The audiometric pattern in patients with otosclerosis and outcomes of stapedectomy are variable. Whether this has anything to do with the number of sites affected by otosclerosis in the otic capsule and the disease pattern according to foci location, foci...

A new treatment for smell loss?

It has been well established that smell training can be effective in the recovery of smell function post Covid-19 infection, and many other treatment modalities have been assessed. There have been limited studies to date evaluating the effects of dietary...

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...