Clinical rating of adenoidal symptoms in children provides a reasonably reliable assessment of the presence and severity of nasopharyngeal airway obstruction. This technique of assessment is easy to use and is particularly valid when obstruction is either minimal or gross.

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Objectives To evaluate the quality of life of patients with ongoing tinnitus. Study Design This was a cross-sectional study of patients with ongoing tinnitus. Setting The study was carried out in a tertiary hospital in southeastern Nigeria. Subjects and Methods Subjects are adults who presented to the otorhinolaryngology clinic with tinnitus as their primary complaint. Pure-tone audiometry, tinnitus pitch, and loudness matching were done. The Tinnitus Handicap Inventory (THI) questionnaire was used in assessing their quality of life. Results There were 63 participants within the age range of 16 to 74 years; 20 (31.7%) were male and 43 (68.3%) were female. The mean duration of tinnitus was 26.7 ± 38.1 months. Nineteen (30.2%) participants had bilateral tinnitus while 44 (69.8%) had unilateral tinnitus. The mean THI score was 36.6 ± 19.7. The most reported handicap was anxiety and difficulty with concentration followed by depression and irritability. There was no correlation between the disability shown by the THI score and the age, sex, duration of the tinnitus, the tinnitus pitch, tinnitus loudness, or the laterality of the tinnitus. There was a significant positive correlation between the grade of hearing loss and the level of disability reported in the THI ( P = .01). Conclusion Tinnitus sufferers appear to have poorer quality of life compared with nonsufferers. This quality-of-life affectation is likely to be worse in those with disabling hearing loss but does not appear to be related to their age, sex, symptom duration, or the loudness and pitch of their tinnitus.

Background: Ear related diseases are commonly seen in clinics worldwide especially among children. They are associated with significant morbidity and frequent hospital visits. Limited data exists regarding the burden of ear disease among Nigerian children. Objective: To determine the prevalence of ear-related problems among children presenting at the Paediatric and Otorhinolaryngology clinics of the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Enugu. Materials and methods: This was a cross-sectional study conducted at the Paediatric and Otorhinolaryngology Clinics of the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital Enugu. All children aged 0 and 17 years presenting between 1 st June and 31 st August 2006 with ear-related problems were enrolled consecutively into the study. Data analysis was by SPSS version 11. Results: Three thousand and twenty-one children were seen during the study period. Out of these, 248 children (8.2%) presented with ear-related problems. Chronic otitis media (30.5%), acute otitis media (29.9%), cerumen auris (11.3%), otitis externa(10.1%), hearing impairment (7.3%) and foreign body in the ear (5.7%) were the most commonly diagnosed ear-related problems. Conclusion: Ear-related problems among children presenting at the UNTH Enugu were not uncommon. However, otitis media was the most commonly diagnosed ailment affecting the ears in children.

Introduction Tinnitus is a worldwide problem. Objective The objective of this study is to evaluate the audiometric hearing thresholds of adult patients with ongoing tinnitus as their only otological symptom. Methods We evaluated the hearing thresholds of 43 adult patients with ongoing tinnitus and no history of hearing loss from the otolaryngology department of a tertiary health institution at speech and high frequencies. A total of 56 tinnitus ears were compared against 30 contralateral normal ears as well as with the 100 ears of 50 healthy volunteers. Results The study group consisted of 11 (25.6%) males and 32 (74.4%) females with a mean age of 40.9 ± 11.7. The mean Pure Tone Average of the 56 tinnitus ears was 14.8 ± 9, while that of the 100 control ears was 11.2 ± 6 (U = 2078, p = 0.008). The mean pure tone average of the control was also significantly lower than that of the 30 contralateral normal ears of the tinnitus sufferers (U = 1136, p = 0.02). We observed mild to moderate hearing loss in 10 (23%) of the participants. We observed no hearing loss among the control group. Conclusion A proportion of tinnitus sufferers with self-professed normal hearing are likely to have mildly elevated pure tone audiometric thresholds. In patients with unilateral tinnitus, such elevated pure tone hearing thresholds are likely to be in the tinnitus ear and the contralateral non-tinnitus ear.

A clinical study was conducted to test the efficacy of fluconazole in the treatment of tropical deep mycoses. Two out of four patients with zygomycosis due to Conidiobolus coronatus who were treated with the drug were completely cured; the other two patients exhibited considerable improvement but could not be followed up. Two patients with eumycetoma, one due to an Acremonium sp. and one due to Pseudallescheria boydii, were treated successfully, whereas another patient with a eumycetoma caused by an unidentified fungus could not be followed up. A complete cure was achieved with one patient with African histoplasmosis and one with candiduria. A case of cerebral phaeohyphomycosis due to Cladosporium sp. showed some improvement but the patient later developed meningitis and died.

The aim of this study was to examine improvements or otherwise, in sleep disturbance and breathing difficulties after adenotonsillectomy (AT) for chronic upper airway obstruction in children. In a prospective clinical study and tertiary referral center setting, the study population included consecutive children aged 1.5 through 12 years who underwent AT for chronic upper airway obstruction due to adenotonsillar enlargement, without any history of previous AT. The validated ''Symptomatology score'' (SS) parameters were used to grade the symptoms before and after AT. The extent of improvement of the symptoms after surgery were estimated by a standardized response mean (SRM). The study included 59 children, 40 of whom were males (68%). Their ages ranged from 1.5 to 12 years with a mean of 3.3 years and 63% were \4 years. The results showed that tonsillar size was correlated significantly with a high preoperative SS (P B 0.001). The mean preoperative SS for the study population was 7.2, whereas the mean postoperative SS was 1.7. This change was highly significant (P \ 0.001). The symptom domain with the greatest change in mean score was snoring, which improved by 2 points with SRM of 2.2. The changes in total score and in the scores for each symptom domain were highly significant (P \ 0.002). We concluded that adenotonsillectomy is associated with remarkable improvement in breathing difficulties and sleep disturbances in children with obstructive adenotonsillar hypertrophy regardless of the condition whether it is mild or severe.

IntroductionDischarging middle ear continues to be one of the commonest problems seen in the developing world. There is an ever growing need to carry out studies periodically to determine the common bacterial agents responsible for discharging otitis media and their antibiotic sensitivity especially in set-ups characterized with minimal laboratory services. The study sought to determine the common bacterial agents causing discharging middle ear among children presenting at the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Enugu and their sensitivity to the commonly available antibiotics.MethodsMiddle ear swabs were collected from 100 children aged 1 month to 17 years at the Children Out-Patient and Otorhinolaryngology Clinics of the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Enugu, Nigeria. The specimens were cultured for aerobic bacterial organisms and their sensitivity determined.ResultsAmong those with acute discharge, Staphylococcal aureus was isolated in 31.3% and Proteus species in 25.0%. In chronically discharging ears, Proteus Species dominated (39.1%), followed by Staphylococcal aureus (28.3%).ConclusionStaphylococcal aureus and Proteus species were the commonest bacterial agents in acute and chronic otitis media respectively. Most isolates showed high sensitivity to the fluoroquinolone antibiotics.