[Clinical significance of unilateral tonsillar enlargement].

Introduction: Asymptomatic unilateral tonsillar enlargement is usually treated with systematic tonsillectomy under suspicion of malignancy. Due to the fact that most of the cases are benign pathologies, we set out to study the clinical signs that would help us in the diagnosis in order to avoid unnecessary tonsillectomies.

Material And Methods: We reviewed 267 tonsillectomies performed from 1996 to 2006 and 30 of these were indicated because of asymmetry.

[First-bite syndrome].

First-bite syndrome consists of the appearance of pain in the parotid at the beginning of mastication, due to damage to the cervical sympathetic chain or the sympathetic plexus innervating the parotid gland. Clinical presentation in a patient who has undergone surgery of the parapharyngeal space suggests the diagnosis. We report here the case of a patient who presented first-bite syndrome after being operated on for a cervical sympathetic chain schwannoma.

[Pharyngocutaneous fistula following total laryngectomy. A case-control study of risk factors implicated in its onset].

Introduction And Objectives: Pharyngocutaneous fistula is the most frequent complication after total laryngectomy. Risk factors involved in its appearance have been studied by many authors without conclusive results. Our main objective is to identify the risk factors involved in the onset of fistulae at our institution.

[The silent sinus syndrome].

The silent sinus syndrome is a very infrequent pathology. It is described as an enophthalmos secondary to collapse and opacification of maxillary sinus without presenting sinus or nasal symptoms. Osteomeatal complex obstruction is the triggering physiopathologic factor.

Mutation analysis of the SDHD gene in four kindreds with familial paraganglioma: description of one novel germline mutation.

The familial paraganglioma syndrome is an autosomal dominant disorder characterized by the presence of carotid body paragangliomas and, less frequently, paragangliomas of the glomus jugulare, glomus vagale, and adrenal pheochromocytomas. Germline mutations of the genes for succinate dehydrogenase subunits D, B, or C (SDHD, SDHB, SDHC) have been identified in some kindreds with familial paraganglioma. In this study, we report the clinicopathologic features of four different kindreds with familial paraganglioma, which were screened for germline mutations in the SDHD gene.