Schwannoma of the epiglottis: first report of a case.

Schwannomas of the larynx are rare. Most of the few such reports in the literature have described schwannomas that occurred in the aryepiglottic fold or the true vocal folds. In this article, we report what we believe is the first case of a schwannoma arising from the epiglottis.

Relationship between quality of life and depression in patients with head and neck cancer.

Objective: This study describes the relationship between health-related quality of life (HRQOL) and depression in patients following major surgery for head and neck cancer.

Design: Cross-sectional study using medical chart review, patient interview, and test administration.

Method: Fifty patients were evaluated 6 months to 6 years following surgery using one global HRQOL measure (The Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-General [FACT-G]); three disease-specific measures of HRQOL (the HN module of the FACT [FACT-HNS], The University of Washington Quality of Life Scale [UWQOL], and The Performance Status Scale for Head and Neck Cancer); and one measure of depression (The Beck Depression Inventory [BDI]).

Factors related to quality of life and functional status in 50 patients with head and neck cancer.

Quality of life (QOL) and functional status (FS) have become important outcome measures in cancer therapy. Valid and reliable instruments recently have been developed for examining QOL and FS in patients with head and neck (HN) cancer. The present study evaluated the relationships of QOL and FS to physical and psychological variables assumed to affect QOL and FS.

Unilateral parathyroidectomy: the value of the localizing scan.

Surgery for correction of primary hyperparathyroidism utilizing a standard bilateral neck exploration has a success rate of approximately 90 to 95%. With the inception of pre-operative localization studies that were 90% accurate in localizing the diseased gland, the concept arose that a unilateral exploration could be as successful as a bilateral exploration. Bilateral exploration of the neck for hyperparathyroidism exposes the patient to a greater potential of morbidity for hypoparathyroidism and recurrent laryngeal nerve injury.