For otolaryngologists, who are often the first-line of defense in diagnosing and treating many common respiratory ailments, differentiating the potential culprits behind sneezing, wheezing, stuffy nose, heavy chest, and chronic cough demands an ever-growing need to recognize and identify underlying conditions that include allergies and asthma.
In this age of increasing reliance on diagnostic technologies to better see pathologies of the body, there is a confounding problem of seeing too much, with too little understanding of what one is seeing and whether what one sees poses a problem.
Several treatments for allergy-related disease have high-quality evidence to support them, according to panelists at a seminar in Chicago at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery (AAO-HNS), which focused on evidence-based medicine as the model applies to allergy.
A flexible carbon dioxide laser caused patients less pain and burning than the more traditionally used pulsed-dye laser in office-based treatment of benign diseases of the larynx, researchers have reported.
Medical residents used to work shifts so long that fatigue blurred their vision, clouded their judgment, and overall put them on the brink of mental and physical exhaustion.
