Predictors of early postoperative pneumonia after oncologic surgery with the patients receiving professional oral health care: A prospective, multicentre, cohort study.

This study was a prospective, multicentre, cohort study on 685 patients who had undergone oncologic surgery. The patients were divided into two groups according to the presence or absence of postoperative pneumonia. The two groups were compared with respect to their background, index operation, food eaten, oral condition, contents of oral care and dental treatment, laboratory data, and bacterial flora.

Usefulness of a handheld nebulizer in cough test to screen for silent aspiration.

Cough test to screen for silent aspiration (SA) was reported, and the effectiveness was excellent. However, the device was rather large so that the portability was poor. So, the purpose of this study is to investigate the usefulness of a handheld nebulizer for the test and verify the reproducibility of the method.

[Upper esophageal sphincter bolus flow laterality after unilateral neck dissection].

The unilateral bolus passage through the upper esophageal sphincter (UES) is often observed in swallow evaluations of patients following neck dissection. Head rotation toward the paretic side was reported to be useful to prevent aspiration; however, we often encounter cases of head and neck surgical patients in which the bolus passes through the non-surgical side. Therefore, we investigated UES flow after head and neck surgery to evaluate the laterality to find an effective treatment technique after a head and neck operation.