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Actinomycosis is an atypical cause of infection in the head and neck area, especially in children. A rare incidence of actinomycosis, its nonspecific clinical signs that mimic other pathological conditions, as well as a complicated identification of microorganism lead to diagnostic delays in clinical practice. Besides an accurate diagnosis, it is of an utmost importance to pinpoint relevant predisposing factors, which might result in the infection. We present a clinical case of actinomycotic infection of the thyroid gland in the pediatric patient at our department.

Introduction: Electrode length selection based on case-related cochlear parameters is becoming a standard pre-operative step for cochlear implantation. The manual measurement of the parameters is often time-consuming and may lead to inconsistencies. Our work aimed to evaluate a novel, automatic measurement method. Materials and Methods: A retrospective evaluation of pre-operative HRCT images of 109 ears (56 patients) was conducted, using a development version of the OTOPLAN® software. Inter-rater (intraclass) reliability and execution time were assessed for manual (surgeons R1 and R2) vs. automatic (AUTO) results. The analysis included A-Value (Diameter), B-Value (Width), H-Value (Height), and CDLOC-length (Cochlear Duct Length at Organ of Corti/Basilar membrane). Results: The measurement time was reduced from approximately 7 min ± 2 (min) (manual) to 1 min (AUTO). Cochlear parameters in mm (mean ± SD) for R1, R2 and AUTO, respectively, were A-value: 9.00 ± 0.40, 8.98 ± 0.40 and 9.16 ± 0.36; B-value: 6.81 ± 0.34, 6.71 ± 0.35 and 6.70 ± 0.40; H-value: 3.98 ± 0.25, 3.85 ± 0.25 and 3.76 ± 0.22; and the mean CDLoc-length: 35.64 ± 1.70, 35.20 ± 1.71 and 35.47 ± 1.87. AUTO CDLOC measurements were not significantly different compared to R1 and R2 (H0: Rx CDLOC = AUTO CDLOC: p = 0.831, p = 0.242, respectively), and the calculated intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) for CDLOC was 0.9 (95% CI: 0.85, 0.932) for R1 vs. AUTO; 0.90 (95% CI: 0.85, 0.932) for R2 vs. AUTO; and 0.893 (95% CI: 0.809, 0.935) for R1 vs. R2. Conclusions: We observed excellent inter-rater reliability, a high agreement of outcomes, and reduced execution time using the AUTO method.