Faculty Bibliography

Early recognition of potentially fatal complications of bacterial infections of the ears, sinuses, and pharynx is important for successful therapy. The clinical presentations of these infections are reviewed in this article, and the approach to initial diagnostic tests is outlined. Treatment recommendations are briefly discussed, with emphasis placed on early antibiotic therapy and indications for consultations from surgical colleagues.

Uncontrolled cervical metastasis is the most common source of failure in the surgical treatment of supraglottic carcinoma. This study was designed to determine the value of supraomohyoid neck dissection in patients undergoing supraglottic laryngectomy. The rationale for considering the role of supraomohyoid neck dissection is that such a dissection encompasses the subdigastric and midjugular nodes which are the first echelon of lymphatic drainage of the supraglottic larynx. Thirty-eight patients with a diagnosis of epidermoid carcinoma of the supraglottis were treated by subtotal supraglottic laryngectomy (SSL). Ten patients underwent SSL with no neck dissection, 16 patients underwent SSL with supraomohyoid neck dissection (SOHD)--9 unilateral and 7 bilateral, and 12 patients underwent SSL with radical neck dissection (RND). The 3 groups had comparable T classifications. All of the SSL and SSL with SOHD patients were classified as N0. Of the 12 patients treated with SSL and RND, 4 were classified as N0, 4 as N1, 3 as N2, and 1 as N3. The patients were studied to determine the incidence and pattern of subsequent neck disease, survival, complications, and length of hospitalization. The data indicates that supraomohyoid neck dissection offers little benefit as an adjunct to supraglottic laryngectomy.

Osteoradionecrosis of the maxilla and base of skull are rare phenomena, usually seen after combined therapy for malignancies of the maxillary sinus. While the mandible is most commonly affected by osteoradionecrosis, the maxilla and skull base may also be affected when preoperative or postoperative radiotherapy is combined with surgery. Contributing factors may be: high radiation dosage delivered to the treatment volume (greater than 6000 rads), loss of tissue protective effects due to surgery, decreased vascularity caused by surgery and radiation, and proximity of a contaminated field. Onset of symptoms may vary. One patient presented 25 years after postoperative radiotherapy. Major symptoms were pain, trismus, and purulent discharge. The best diagnostic modality remains the history and physical exam, as the area is readily accessible. CT scans may be helpful in diagnosis and treatment planning. Therapy should follow time honored principles of local wound care. Home irrigations and hyperbaric therapy have been helpful in encouraging early sequestration and rapid healing

The variation of vocal efficiency for the mean values for normal subjects was investigated in patients with laryngeal disease. The relative contributions of mean flow rate and intrapulmonic pressure to the variation of efficiency were explored to explain aerodynamic aspects in voice disorders. Vocal efficiency was determined by use of expressions involving simultaneous values of sound pressure level, mean flow rate, and intrapulmonic pressure. The intrapulmonic pressure was noninvasively obtained by plethysmographic and pneumotachographic methods. Values of vocal efficiency were generally abnormally low for the types of larynges studied. An aerodynamic-biomechanical classification of laryngeal disease was inferred from the data: 1) large chink of glottis, associated with high flow rate; 2) mass on vocal fold, associated with high values of both flow rate and intrapulmonic pressure; and 3) high stiffness of vocal fold, associated with high values of intrapulmonic pressure.

It has been acknowledged that for many patients with spastic dysphonia, reflexive phonation remains essentially free of the spasticity that characterizes this disorder. The purpose of this paper is to document the extent to which various phonatory tasks change the patient's voice. We retrospectively reviewed 37 patients with spastic dysphonia evaluated at the Center for Communication Disorders of Lenox Hill Hospital, New York, between 1977 and 1981. The patients' responses to various phonatory tasks were observed. These tasks were grouped into the following ten categories: noncommunicative vocalization, primitive communication, speech superimposed on noncommunicative phonation, communicative phonation with varied mode of vocal fold vibration, normal communicative phonation with unusual pitch, normal communicative phonation with unusual emphasis, normal communicative phonation with normal laryngeal adjustments, use of the vocal folds in an artistic manner, speech in which normal auditory feedback was eliminated, and speaking with whisper which was not associated with vocal fold vibration. The results are summarized as follows: 1) whispered speech always resulted in an improvement of the symptom, in most cases markedly; 2) there was a tendency for a task that was more effective in reducing spasticity to be reduced in communicative function; 3) there was a tendency for a task that was more effective in reducing the spasticity to deviate more from the normal mode of phonation; and 4) there were some patients in whom an improvement occurred with elimination of auditory feedback.

A 69-year-old man had an abscess in the neck caused by Salmonella hador (enteritidis) infection. Salmonella infection of the head and neck are rare, and often occur in association with Salmonella infection in other parts of the body. The patient described may have had seeding to the neck from previous gastrointestinal infection. Treatment by drainage of the abscess and oral administration of ampicillin was successful. To the authors' knowledge, this is the sixth case of pure Salmonella infection of the head and neck reported in the world literature