No abstract

All hot techniques resulted in a higher risk for late PTH compared with cold steel dissection +cold haemostasis. The risk for RTT was higher for all hot techniques except for coblation, while ultrascision resulted in a lower risk for early PTH. An early PTH was associated with an increased risk for late PTH.

Of 300 patients, 208 were considered to have idiopathic SSNHL; 50% were treated with corticosteroids, 44% did not receive any treatment. The treated patients had the same outcome as the non-treated patients. The time interval from onset of SSNHL to start of treatment was of importance for the outcome irrespective of type of audiogram or results from laboratory tests. Higher age and heredity for hearing loss gave a significantly lower chance of improvement.

RF appears to be a safe and reliable method for tonsil surgery with much less postoperative morbidity than regular TE.

Conclusion:Prednisolone in customary dosage does not seem to influence recovery of idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss.

No abstract

Removing only the protruding parts of the tonsils has the same beneficial long-term effect on obstructive symptoms and recurrent throat infections as complete TE in the majority of cases. The need for re-operation is low; therefore, it appears inadvisable to follow the current common practice of routinely removing the whole tonsil given its higher morbidity and risk for serious complications.

The prevalence of breathing obstruction was determined in a cohort of 4-year-old children. Craniofacial morphology was studied in obstructed children and compared with data from a control group of 4-year-old children with ideal occlusion. Dental arch morphology was compared in obstructed and non-obstructed children in the group. Parents of 95.5 per cent of the study base of 644 children answered a questionnaire concerning their child's nocturnal behaviour and related questions. The 48 children who, based on parental report, snored every night or stopped breathing when snoring (the 'snoring group'), showed a higher rate of disturbed sleep, mouth-breathing, and a history of throat infections as compared with the rest of the cohort. These children were examined by both an orthodontist and an otorhinolaryngologist and, when indicated, they were also monitored in a sleep laboratory. Twenty-eight of the children were diagnosed as having a breathing obstruction (4.3 per cent of the cohort) and six children (0.9 per cent) had sleep apnoea (mean apnoea-hypopnoea index of 17.3), using the same definition as that for adults. Cephalometric values among the obstructed children differed from those of a Swedish sample of the same age with ideal occlusion. Thy had a smaller cranial base angle and a lower ratio of posterior/anterior total face height. Small, but not significant differences were seen for NSL-ML and NL-ML. Compared with 48 asymptomatic children from the same cohort, the obstructed children had a narrower maxilla, a deeper palatal height, and a shorter lower dental arch. In addition, the prevalence of lateral crossbite was significantly higher among the obstructed children.