Surgical polarimetric endoscopy for the detection of laryngeal cancer.

The standard-of-care for the detection of laryngeal pathologies involves distinguishing suspicious lesions from surrounding healthy tissue via contrasts in colour and texture captured by white-light endoscopy. However, the technique is insufficiently sensitive and thus leads to unsatisfactory rates of false negatives. Here we show that laryngeal lesions can be better detected in real time by taking advantage of differences in the light-polarization properties of cancer and healthy tissues.

COVID-VU - ENT-UK national survey of flexible nasendoscopy in the upper aerodigestive tract amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

Background: Flexible nasendoscopy (FNE) is an invaluable multi-disciplinary tool for upper aerodigestive tract (UADT) examination. During the COVID-19 pandemic concerns were raised that FNE had the potential of generating aerosols resulting in human cross-contamination when performed on SARS-COV2 carriers. In the UK, and other European countries, national guidelines were issued restricting FNE to essential cases.

Utilisation of tracheostomy in patients with COVID-19 in England: Patient characteristics, timing and outcomes.

Objectives: We aimed to characterise the use of tracheostomy procedures for all COVID-19 critical care patients in England and to understand how patient factors and timing of tracheostomy affected outcomes.

Design: A retrospective observational study using exploratory analysis of hospital administrative data.

Setting: All 500 National Health Service hospitals in England.

Image challenge: A diabetic man with facial swelling following recent Covid-19 infection.

A 68-year-old man with diabetes presented with shortness of breath, left sided facial swelling, and nasal discharge. He had recently returned from India and PCR was positive for SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant. CT head and diffusion-weighted MRI sinuses were performed and the patient underwent endoscopic sinus surgery before being transferred to a specialist skull base centre.