No abstract

The thyroid gland is a very rare site for head and neck schwannomas. Till date there have been only 19 reported cases in English literature. Only 25% of schwannomas occur in the head and neck region, most of them arising in relation to the peripheral nerves and cervical sympathetic chain. We report a similar case, with clinical and sonological features of a benign thyroid nodule. The diagnosis of schwannoma was established on the final histopathology report and a review of the slides and the imaging was done to confirm the site of origin. A thorough review of earlier reported cases was done. We summarize the existing knowledge on this entity, emphasizing the challenge of diagnosing it pre-operatively.

Incidence of discharge, debris, giddiness, pain was reduced in obliterated cavities. Healing of cavity was better in obliterated ears. Cavity obliterated with bone dust and flap had better and early epithelialisation as compared to cartilage.

Wegeners granulomatosis is a necrotizing granulomatous vasculitis with multisystemic involvement. We present two cases of Wegener's presenting with otological manifestations as the first symptom. These symptoms are subtle and diagnosis may be easily overlooked. Hence a high index of suspicion is required. Early diagnosis and treatment goes a long way in improving the outcomes and in preventing further complications.

Wegener's granulomatosis is a systemic disease with various manifestations. A high index of clinical suspicion is required to reach the correct diagnosis. The clinician should be alerted to the possibility of Wegener's granulomatosis in the presence of: systemic upset out of proportion to the apparent intensity of the local lesion; middle-ear disease failing to respond to conventional treatment; and a consistently raised erythrocyte sedimentation rate.

The current study was undertaken with a view to identify differential biomarkers in chewing-tobacco-associated oral cancer tissues in patients of Indian ethnicity. The gene expression profile was analyzed in oral cancer tissues as compared to clinically normal oral buccal mucosa. We examined 30 oral cancer tissues and 27 normal oral tissues with 16 paired samples from contralateral site of the patient and 14 unpaired samples from different oral cancer patients, for whole genome expression using high-throughput IlluminaSentrix Human Ref-8 v2 Expression BeadChip array. The cDNA microarray analysis identified 425 differentially expressed genes with >1.5-fold expression in the oral cancer tissues as compared to normal tissues in the oral cancer patients. Overexpression of 255 genes and downregulation of 170 genes (p < 0.01) were observed. Further, a minimum twofold overexpression was observed in 32 genes and downregulation in 12 genes, in 30-83% of oral cancer patients. Biological pathway analysis using Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genome Pathway database revealed that the differentially regulated genes were associated with critical biological functions. The biological functions and representative deregulated genes include cell proliferation (AIM2, FAP, TNFSF13B, TMPRSS11A); signal transduction (FOLR2, MME, HTR3B); invasion and metastasis (SPP1, TNFAIP6, EPHB6); differentiation (CLEC4A, ELF5); angiogenesis (CXCL1); apoptosis (GLIPR1, WISP1, DAPL1); and immune responses (CD300A, IFIT2, TREM2); and metabolism (NNMT; ALDH3A1). Besides, several of the genes have been differentially expressed in human cancers including oral cancer. Our data indicated differentially expressed genes in oral cancer tissues and may identify prognostic and therapeutic biomarkers in oral cancers, postvalidation in larger numbers and varied population samples.

Ameloblastomas are rare, slowly growing and locally invasive tumours with high recurrence rate, if not treated they can grow to enormous size; we report five such cases in our article and discuss their surgical management. We report five cases of giant ameloblastoma presented in our institute between 2007 and 2010, we treated them surgically with wide margin of resection. It is widely reported that recurrence of ameloblastoma in many cases reflects the inadequacy or failure of the primary surgical procedure. We treated all our cases with radical excision with free flap reconstruction with no recurrence in any of our patients in 2 years follow-up. Radical excision of these benign but locally invasive lesions, which grows to giant size with reconstruction using micro vascular free flaps forms the best modality of treatment.

A variety of swellings located on or near the gums is clinically included under the heading of epulis. There are various types of epulis. In today's era of super specialization gum swellings more commonly present to the dental surgeon than to the practicing otolaryngologist. We present an interesting case of a fibrous epulis managed in our institute along with a brief review of literature.