Study Raises Questions about Angioedema Management

What are the criteria for airway intervention in patients with angioedema? Background: Angioedema is painless edema of the mucosal and cutaneous surfaces. The more common type is hereditary and is caused […]

Larygnopharyngeal Reflux Changes Laryngeal Mucosa

How does reflux affect laryngeal tissue quality? Background: Laryngopharyngeal reflux has deleterious effects on the larynx. Due to the poor intrinsic protective mechanisms in this tissue, damage occurs at a higher […]

Treatment Options: Study reports neck dissection effective in patients with residual disease

Patients who had residual neck disease after treatment for a primary head and neck squamous carcinoma and then underwent neck dissection had comparable survival rates to those who had their disease resolved after their initial chemotherapy and radiation treatment, according to a retrospective analysis from researchers at the University of Louisville in Kentucky presented here Jan. 27.

Lessons Learned: How to overcome the cultural barriers to EMR implementation

Health care reform and government incentives have intensified the dialogue on electronic medical records (EMR). Despite the financial incentives for EMR adoption included in the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, enacted as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, physician response remains lukewarm. The HITECH incentives program fails to recognize that the greatest barrier to EMR adoption is not financial, but cultural.

A Patient with Right-Sided Odynophagia

A 33-year-old white male presented with a one-year history of right-sided odynophagia. Symptoms were constant and exacerbated by swallowing. He had a history of cryptic tonsils but had not undergone tonsillectomy; his past medical history was otherwise unremarkable. There was tenderness to palpation over the right tonsil with exacerbation of symptoms. No head and neck masses were appreciated. A CT scan was obtained.

Research Overhaul: Changes to cancer research organizations on the horizon, expert says

The system of clinical cancer research, including that of head and neck cancer, is in need of an overhaul, but steps are being taken that might lead to more efficient work and will hopefully mean more medical breakthroughs, said David Schuller, MD, the chair in cancer research at the Ohio State University College of Medicine in Columbus, at the Triological Society’s Combined Sections Meeting, held here on Jan. 27.