ENT Flashcards
Describe Epistaxis, the types, causes and management
The Chief ENT emergency, respect all nosebleeds, as they can be fatal. Usually split into anterior or posterior.
Anterior bleeds can be easily seen with rhinoscopy and are simple to treat and usually less severe. Anterior epistaxis is almost invariably septal, usually in little’s area (Kiesslbach’s plexus), is used to describe the area where anterior ethmoidal, sphenopalatine, and facial arteries anastomose to form an anterior anastomotic arcade.
Posterior epistaxis tend to be more severe, and more invasive procedures may be needed. examination under anaesthesia is first, and if a discrete bleeding point is found it can be treated directly e.g. diathermy. Ligation is becoming the gold standard with endoscopic ligation of the maxillary/sphenopalatine artery around the sphenopalatine foramen.
Causes:
- trauma
- dyscrasia/haemophilia
- increased alcohol intake
- septal perforation
- neoplasm
Management:
- Resuscitate as needed DR ABCDE
- apply pressure to lower soft part of nose for 15 minutes while mouth-breathing and sitting forward.
- decongest (e.g. with ephedrine 0.5% drops)
- ice on dorsum of nose
- prepare silver nitrate cautery
- look, locate, suction and spray on lidocaine and phenylephrine wait a few minutes
- find bleeding points and cauterise from outside in, call ENT if unable to find
- If bleeding continues try anterior nasal pack and failing that a posterior nasal pack.
Describe Acute Otitis Media, its presentation, and management
Common condition entailing middle ear inflammation. Usually due to Pneumococcus, haemophilus, streps and staphs.
Presentation: Rapid onset of pain, fever (40C in children) +/- irritability, anorexia, vomiting ofter after a URTI. Drum bulging cause pain, then purulent discharge if it perforates (which often settles in 48h).
Management:
- Give analgesia and amoxicillin for up to 7 days unless patient appears well and follow-up is simple.
- Continuing discharge may indicate complications such as mastoiditis, petrositis, labyrinthitis, meningitis.
- Treat with IV antibiotics and get help if continuing discharge, consider drainage.
Describe Mastoiditis, its risk factors, signs and management
An ENT emergency, middle ear inflammation leads to destruction of air cells in the mastoid bone +/- abscess formation. Beware intracranial extension. Patient who were delayed antibiotics for otitis media are at increased risk.
Signs: Fever, tender boggy mastoid, protruding auricle, erythematous, swollen mastoid.
Management:
- Imaging with CT, to determine extend of disease.
- Requires hospitalisation, IV antibiotics, myringotomy,+/- definitive mastoidectomy
Describe Glue Ear, its signs, tests, and management.
Very common, middle ear condition typically affecting infants and children. The fundamental problem lies with dysfunction of the Eustachian tube though exact cause is unclear. Associated with oversized adenoids and URTIs, and is also more common in boys, downs syndrome, winter season, atopy, children of smokers, and Primary Ciliary dyskinesia. It is the chief cause of hearing loss in young children and can lead to learning problems.
Signs: Hearing impairment noticed by parents is the mode of presentation in 80%, look for delay in communication e.g. poor listening, poor speech, language delay, inattention, poor behaviour. Tympanic membrane may be retracted and look grey, dull or yellow, there may be bubbles or an obvious fluid level.
Tests: Audiograms to look for conductive defects, Impedance audiometry looking for a flat tympanogram which helps distinguish glue ear from eustachian malfunction and otoslcerosis.
Management:
- Usually resolves over time.
- Explantation/reassurance and 3 monthly review may be enough.
- If persistent bilateral OME + hearing level in better ear of less than 25-30 Decibel hearing loss confirmed over 3 months then myringotomy + suction of fluid, insertion of Grommets +/- adenoidectomy (if hearing loss).
- Main complications of grommets are infection and tympanosclerosis.
Describe Tonsillitis, it management, and complications
Sore throat +/- lymphadenopathy often caused by viruses, group A streps, haemophilus
Management:
- Paracetamol +/- Difflam gargle if severe
- antibiotics if suspect bacterial cause, use centor criteria: history of fever, tonisllar exudates, tender anterior cervical adenopathy, absence of cough. 0-2 no abx, 2-4 treat with abx.
- Surgical, Do not do tonsillectomy unless you are sure that sore throats are in fact due to tonsillitis, 7 or more episodes of sore throat occur in a year, 5 or more for 2 years or 3 or more for 3 years.
Complications:
- Retropharyngeal abscess
- Peritonsillar abscess
- Parapharyngeal and hypopharyngeal abscess
- lemierre’s syndrome = pharyngotonsillitis internal jugular vein thrombophlebitis +/- septic emboli. caused by fusobacterium necrophorum. treat with high dose benzylpenicillin, clindamycin and metronidazole.
Describe Stridor and some of its causes.
Stridor is a musical noise heard in inspiration from partial obstruction at the larynx or large airway. Children’s airways are narrower and more readily deformed than adult airways so obstruction happens faster and more dramatically. Look for other signs e.g. swallowing difficulty/drooling, pale/cyanosed, use of accessory muscles of respiration, downward plunging of the trachea with respiration (tracheal tug).
Causes:
- Congenital e.g. laryngomalacia, web/stenosis, vascular rings
- Inflammatory e.g. laryngitis, epiglottitis, laryngotracheobronchitis, anaphylaxis
- Neoplastic e.g. haemangiomas, papillomas
- Trauma - thermal/chemical or from intubation
- Miscellaneous e.g. decreased consciousness, airway or oesophageal foreign body, vocal cord paralysis.
Describe laryngomalacia and its management
Most common cause of congenital stridor (60%), appearing within hours of birth (or up to a few months). It is a noisy inspiratory stridor and increased noise with crying, excitement or activity. usually no cyanosis or distress.
It is due to immature and floppy aryepilgotic folds and glottis which increase laryngeal collapse in inspiration.
Management:
- Usually no management needed and symptoms improve by 2yrs old. Problems may occur with infections or with feeding.
- Try surgery if severe, can also develop in association with GORD
Describe Acute epiglottitis, its signs, an management
An ENT emergency as respiratory arrest can occur, it is rarer than croup but mortality is high. Typically caused by haemophilus or strep pyogenes
Signs: often history is short, septicaemia is rapid and cough is absent, sore throat (100%), fever (88%), dyspnoea (78%), voice change (75%), dysphagia (76%)
Management:
- Take to ITU, dont examine throat
- O2 by mask until anaesthetist and ENT arrive
- give nebulised adrenaline, IV dexamethasone
- Visual diagnosis at nasopharyngeal intubation
- blood/epiglottic culture
- find cricothyrotomy kit
- IVI + pencllin G and ceftriaxone
- anti-pyretic e.g ibuprofen
Describe Croup, its severity grading, and management.
Also known as laryngotracheobronchitis it is the leading cause of stridor with barking cough, 95% due to viral causes e.g. parainfluenza. If there is cough and no drooling, most likely croup.
Severity Grading: 1 = inspiratory stridor +/- barking cough 2 = 1 + expiratory stridor 3 = 2 + pulsus paradoxus 4 = 3 + cyanosis or decreased cognition
Management:
- usually self-limiting, treat at home
- single dose of oral dexamethasone
- admit if severe,
What is Unterberger’s test?
Test of vestibular function. Patient is asked to march up and down on the spot with arms stretched out and eyes closed. +ve if more than 45degree turn in less than 50 steps.
What is the Hallpike test?
Used to diagnose benign positional vertigo, The Hallpike manoeuvre rotates the posterior semicircular canal in the plane of gravity.
‘keep your eyes open and look straight ahead’. While supine the head is held between the examiners hands, turned rapidly 30-40degrees to one side and then rapidly lowered 30 degrees below the couch’s level. Ask the patient if they feel dizzy and look for nystagmus. To be positive there must be a latency period of 5-10seconds before symptoms and there must be symptoms and also it should only last 1min.
Describe Benign Positional Vertigo, its causes, diagnosis, and treatment
Attacks of sudden rotational vertigo lasting more than 30 seconds are provoked by head-turning. It is common after head injury. Thought to be due to displacement of otoconia (calcium carbonate particles displaced from cells within the endolymph) in the semicircular canals
Causes: Idiopathic, middle-ear disease, head injury, otosclerosis, spontaneous labyrinthine degeneration, postviral illness, stapes surgery.
Diagnosis:
- establish important negatives
- no persistent vertigo
- no speech, visual, motor or sensory problems
- no tinnitus, headache, ataxia, facial numbness, or dysphagia
- no vertical nystagmus
- Then perform hallpikes test
Treatment:
- Usually self-limiting in months
- Conservative: Decreased alcohol intake may help, Epley manoeuvres
- Pharmacological: histamine analogues (betahistine), vestibular sedatives (prochlorperazine), antidepressants.
- Surgical: last resort, posterior semicircular canal denervation or obliteration (deafness may follow)
What are some causes of vertigo?
Peripheral causes:
- Meniere’s disease
- benign positional vertigo
- vestibular failure
- labyrinthitis
- cholesteatoma
Central causes:
- Acoustic neuroma
- MS
- Head injury
- Inner ear syphillis
- vertebrobasilar insufficiency
Drugs (cental/ototoxic):
- gentamicin/aminoglycosides (neuronitis)
- diuretics
- co-trimoxazole
- metronidazole
Describe Otitis Externa, its symptoms, and management
Acute inflammation of the skin of the meatus. Pseudomonas is the chief organism involved although staph aureus is another common offender. May also be fungal.
Symptoms: Minimal discharge, usually white cotton consistency, itch, pain, and tragal tenderness.
Management:
- Aural toilet is key to treatment.
- Topical antibiotics/antifungals
- Beware of persistent unilateral otitis externa in diabetics/immunosuppressed/elderly as at risk of malignant otitis externa which is life threatening condition that can lead to temporal bone destruction and base of skull osteomyelitis. (Urgent CT, Requires surgical debridement, systemic antibiotics, and admission.)
Describe Pinna Haematoma and it management
Blunt trauma may cause bleeding in the subperichondrial plane elevating the perichondrium to form a haematoma.
Management:
-Arrange prompt drainage/evacuation. Poor treatment leads to ischaemic necrosis of cartilage, then fibrosis (a cauliflower ear). Secondary infection may cause major loss of cartilage.
