Fluorescein-Guided Panendoscopy for Head and Neck Cancer Using Handheld Probe-Based Confocal Laser Endomicroscopy: A Pilot Study.

Background: White-light endoscopy and microscopy combined with histological analysis is currently the mainstay for intraprocedural tissue diagnosis during panendoscopy for head and neck cancer. However, taking biopsies leads to selection bias, histopathology is time-consuming, and the advantages of intraoperative decision making cannot be used. Confocal laser endomicroscopy (CLE) has the potential for a rapid and histological assessment in the head and neck operating room.

Gender Disparities in Epidemiology, Treatment, and Outcome for Head and Neck Cancer in Germany: A Population-Based Long-Term Analysis from 1996 to 2016 of the Thuringian Cancer Registry.

This study determined with focus on gender disparity whether incidence based on age, tumor characteristics, patterns of care, and survival have changed in a population-based sample of 8288 German patients with head neck cancer (HNC) registered between 1996 and 2016 in Thuringia, a federal state in Germany. The average incidence was 26.13 ± 2.

Prognostic factors for the outcome of Bells' palsy: A cohort register-based study.

Objectives: There is a lack of data on patients' and diagnostic factors for prognostication of complete recovery in patients with Bell's palsy.

Design And Setting: Cohort register-based study of 368 patients with Bell's palsy and uniform diagnostics and standardised treatment in a university hospital from 2007 to 2017 (49% female, median age: 51 years).

Main Outcome Measures: Clinical data, facial grading, electrodiagnostics, motor function tests, non-motor function tests and onset of prednisolone therapy were assessed for their impact on the probability of complete recovery using univariable and multivariable statistics.

Hospitalization for epistaxis: a population-based healthcare research study in Thuringia, Germany.

Purpose: Epistaxis is the most common ENT emergency. The aim was to determine population-based data on severe epistaxis needing inpatient treatment.

Methods: Retrospective population-based cohort study in the federal state Thuringia in 2016 performed on all 840 inpatients treated for epistaxis in otolaryngology departments (60.

30-day unplanned readmission rate in otolaryngology patients: A population-based study in Thuringia, Germany.

Purpose: Analyze associations between patients' characteristics and treatment factors with 30-day unplanned readmissions in hospitalized otolaryngology patients in the German Diagnosis Related Group (D-DRG) system.

Methods: A retrospective cohort study was performed on 15.271 otolaryngology admissions of 12.

Degree of Hearing Loss Affects Bilateral Hearing Aid Benefits in Ecologically Relevant Laboratory Conditions.

Purpose Previous evidence supports benefits of bilateral hearing aids, relative to unilateral hearing aid use, in laboratory environments using audio-only (AO) stimuli and relatively simple tasks. The purpose of this study was to evaluate bilateral hearing aid benefits in ecologically relevant laboratory settings, with and without visual cues. In addition, we evaluated the relationship between bilateral benefit and clinically viable predictive variables.

A binaural auditory steering strategy based hearing-aid algorithm design.

Beamforming techniques are widely used in hearing aids to enhance the intelligibility of speech from a target direction, but they tend to isolate the listener from their acoustic environment and distort spatial cues. The main reason for this is that a typical beamformer method alters the head-related transfer function of the individual users' ears and functions under monaural assumptions instead of a binaural model. In this letter, a binaural auditory steering strategy (BASS) is proposed for the design of asymmetrically presented spatial filters which improves awareness of the surrounding acoustic environment while preserving intelligibility from a target direction.

Value of confocal laser endomicroscopy in the diagnosis of vocal cord lesions.

Objective: The aim of this study was to assess the reliability and limitations of confocal laser endomicroscopy (CLE) for diagnosing lesions of the vocal cords and differentiating malignant from non-malignant lesions.

Patients And Methods: During microlaryngoscopy, the vocal cords were scanned by probe-based CLE (pCLE: a GastroFlex probe with the Cellvizio® laser system, Mauna Technologies, Paris, France). The video recordings were analyzed and compared with the histological results.

Feasibility of real-time near-infrared indocyanine green fluorescence endoscopy for the evaluation of mucosal head and neck lesions.

Background: The purpose of this study was to explore the feasibility and potential drawbacks of near-infrared (NIR) endoscopy with indocyanine green (ICG) to examine mucosal head and neck lesions.

Methods: NIR ICG endoscopy was applied to image head and neck cancer epithelium in vivo. The evaluation of the ICG videos was performed off-line independently by 2 evaluators and blinded with respect to final histopathological results from biopsies taken as the gold standard.

Automated analysis of confocal laser endomicroscopy images to detect head and neck cancer.

Background: The purpose of this study was to develop an automated image analysis algorithm to discriminate between head and neck cancer and nonneoplastic epithelium in confocal laser endomicroscopy (CLE) images.

Methods: CLE was applied to image head and neck cancer epithelium in vivo. Histopathologic diagnosis from biopsies was used to classify the CLE images offline as cancer or noncancer tissue.

The effect of low-level laser therapy on hearing.

One purported use of low-level laser therapy (LLLT) is to promote healing in damaged cells. The effects of LLLT on hearing loss and tinnitus have received some study, but results have been equivocal. The purpose of this study was to determine if LLLT improved hearing, speech understanding, and/or cochlear function in adults with hearing loss.

Ear asymmetries and asymmetric directional microphone hearing aid fittings.

Purpose: To determine whether an asymmetry between ears for speech understanding in noise was related to performance with, or preference for, 1 of 2 asymmetric microphone fittings in which omnidirectional processing was provided to 1 ear and directional processing to the other.

Method: Twenty-eight adults with symmetric sensorineural hearing impairment were recruited from the clinic population. Sixteen individuals had symmetric hearing-in-noise ability between their right and left ears, and 12 participants had an asymmetry for speech understanding in noise between ears.

High-frequency amplification and sound quality in listeners with normal through moderate hearing loss.

Purpose: One factor that has been shown to greatly affect sound quality is audible bandwidth. Provision of gain for frequencies above 4-6 kHz has not generally been supported for groups of hearing aid wearers. The purpose of this study was to determine if preference for bandwidth extension in hearing aid processed sounds was related to the magnitude of hearing loss in individual listeners.

The robustness of hearing aid microphone preferences in everyday listening environments.

Automatic directionality algorithms currently implemented in hearing aids assume that hearing-impaired persons with similar hearing losses will prefer the same microphone processing mode in a specific everyday listening environment. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the robustness of microphone preferences in everyday listening. Two hearing-impaired persons made microphone preference judgments (omnidirectional preferred, directional preferred, no preference) in a variety of everyday listening situations.

Field evaluation of an asymmetric directional microphone fitting.

Laboratory evidence suggests that an asymmetric microphone fitting (omnidirectional processing in one ear and directional processing in the other) can provide a directional advantage in background noise that is as great, or nearly as great, as that provided by binaural directional processing (Bentler et al, 2004). The present study investigated whether the potential benefit of an asymmetric fitting observed in the laboratory extends to real-life listening. Specifically, ease of listening was compared across a variety of real-life listening situations for asymmetric microphone fittings and bilateral omnidirectional processing.

Predictive measures of directional benefit part 2: verification of different approaches to estimating directional benefit.

Objective: In this investigation, the relation between various directivity measures and subject performance with directional microphone hearing aids was determined.

Design: Test devices included first- and second-order directional microphones. Recordings of sentences and noise (Hearing in Noise Test, HINT) were made through each test device in simple, complex, and anisotropic background noise conditions.

Predictive measures of directional benefit part 1: estimating the directivity index on a manikin.

Objective: In this investigation, a method for computing a directivity index (DI) on a manikin for directional microphones in hearing aids was proposed and evaluated comparatively to other conventional methods.

Design: Test devices included first- and second-order directional microphones. Signal presentation, implemented in an anechoic chamber, involved a single noise source rotated completely around the directional microphone in a hearing aid, in free field and on a manikin, at a defined radius.

Quantification of directional benefit across different polar response patterns.

The purpose of this study was to assess the relationship between the directivity of a directional microphone hearing aid and listener performance. Hearing aids were fit bilaterally to 19 subjects with sensorineural hearing loss, and five microphone conditions were assessed: omnidirectional, cardioid, hypercardioid, supercardioid, and "monofit," wherein the left hearing aid was set to omnidirectional and the right hearing aid to hypercardioid. Speech perception performance was assessed using the Hearing in Noise Test (HINT) and the Connected Speech Test (CST).

Evaluation of an adaptive directional system in a DSP hearing aid.

The effectiveness of an adaptive directional microphone design, as implemented in the Phonak Claro behind-the-ear hearing aid, is evaluated. Participants were fit bilaterally and tested in 2 environments, an anechoic chamber and a moderately reverberant classroom, with the microphones in the fixed (cardioid) setting and the adaptive setting. Five speakers were placed between 110 degrees and 250 degrees azimuth around the listener.

Hearing-in-Noise: comparison of listeners with normal and (aided) impaired hearing.

In this study, the performance of 48 listeners with normal hearing was compared to the performance of 46 listeners with documented hearing loss. Various conditions of directional and omnidirectional hearing aid use were studied. The results indicated that when the noise around a listener was stationary, a first- or second-order directional microphone allowed a group of hearing-impaired listeners with mild-to-moderate, bilateral, sensorineural hearing loss to perform similarly to normal hearing listeners on a speech-in-noise task (i.

Effects of release time and directionality on unilateral and bilateral hearing aid fittings in complex sound fields.

In studies to date, the effectiveness of the directional microphone has been investigated independently of the signal processing scheme used in the hearing aid. In addition, the number and placement of the background noise speakers can create an advantage for a particular polar pattern (i.e.