Three Cases of Surgical Repair of Traumatic Parotid Duct Injury / 대한이비인후과학회지

It is important to both recognize parotid duct injuries and immediately repair them to prevent complications that accompany these injuries. Although there have been some reports of successful conservative treatments of the parotid duct injury, many authors recommend early surgical repair of the parotid duct and, when possible, primary anastomosis as the best treatment. Sialography is very useful for the diagnosis of parotid duct injury and can also support the information of parotid duct system. We present three cases of successful treatment of parotid duct injury with surgical repair. Also, we discuss about the effectiveness of surgical repair of parotid duct injury and how to assess it preoperatively.

The Treatment Outcomes of Primary Subglottic Cancer / 대한이비인후과학회지

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Primary subglottic cancer is uncommon, so our understanding of primary subglottic cancer is limited. The purpose of this study is to review the clinical characteristics and treatment result of primary subglottic cancer from our experience. SUBJECTS AND METHOD: During the period from Nov. 1996 to Nov. 2010, patients with primary subglottic cancer were reviewed retrospectively. The mean follow up period was 46.1+/-40.9 months. We analyzed its clinical characteristics, stage, treatment results and survival rate. RESULTS: Of 824 patients with diagnosed laryngeal cancer, 8 (0.97%) had primary subglottic cancer and hoarseness (50.0%) is the most common initial presenting symptom. The symptom of dyspnea was found in 25.0% (2/8) of the patients and squamous cell carcinoma in 75% (6/8). At the time of diagnosis, the four clinical stages of TNM, T1, T2, T3 and T4, had 1 (12.5%), 2 (25.0%), 1 (12.5%) and 4 (50.0%) patients, respectively. There were two cases of cervical lymph node metastases, N1 and N2c. No distant metastasis was found. Two groups of patients comprising of two patients each received surgery alone or radiation alone as an initial treatment; another two groups of patients comprising of two patients each received concurrent chemoradiation or surgery plus radiation therapy alone. The overall 2-year survival rate was 80.0% and 2-year disease free survival rate was 51.7% in patients with squamous cell carcinoma. CONCLUSION: Despite the infrequency of primary subglottic cancer, it is important to understand its clinical characteristics and treatment results during the early diagnosis to make the prognosis better.

The Relationship of Frequency between Tinnitus and the Maximal Hearing Loss / 대한이비인후과학회지

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Tinnitus is most commonly accompanied by hearing loss, so there have been several studies that tried to explain that relationship and to apply it for treatment of tinnitus. In this study, we compared tinnitogram with pure tone audiometry (PTA) in order to evaluate the relationship between the frequency of tinnitus and maximal hearing loss. SUBJECTS AND METHOD: One hundred thirty one patients with pure tone-like tinnitus sensation were included in this study. After performing tinnitogram and PTA, we tried to show whether the frequency of tinnitus matched the frequency of the maximal hearing loss. After dividing the patients into two groups (group A: frequency of tinnitus not matching the frequency of the maximal hearing loss, group B: frequency of tinnitus matching the frequency of the maximal hearing loss), we studied the characteristics, including residual inhibition, of these two groups. RESULTS: In the patients, there was no significant correlation between the frequency of tinnitus and the maximal hearing loss (p=0.131). In comparing the group A and B, we could not show differences in the hearing threshold, residual inhibition, visual analogue scale, and tinnitus handicap inventory score. However, the average duration of tinnitus was statistically prolonged in Group A than in Group B (p<0.05). In addition, there were statistically significant relationships between the two frequencies in the group which show less than six month of duration (p<0.05). CONCLUSION: From this study, we could not show that a relationship existed between the frequencies of tinnitus and the maximal hearing loss.