Two hearing aids beat one for age-related hearing loss, by a modest margin

The edition in brief

In a single-blinded trial of 275 adults aged 50 or over with age-related hearing loss and little prior hearing aid use, both unilateral and bilateral fitting improved self-reported benefit at three months, and bilateral fitting improved it more (APHAB benefit 19.7 vs 14.4; difference about 5 points). The authors are unsure whether that difference is clinically meaningful. A systematic review of intracapsular tonsil surgery with adenoidectomy for severe childhood obstructive sleep apnoea found the apnoea-hypopnoea index fell from about 20 to 3 events an hour, with low bleeding rates; regrowth and revision ranged from 2% to 15%, so follow-up matters. A meta-analysis of 57 bacteriology studies found Staphylococcus aureus was the most common isolate in acute rhinosinusitis cultures and staphylococci dominated chronic disease, but these cultures come from selected patients and do not change first-line empirical treatment. In 1,187 patients having definitive radiotherapy for head and neck cancer, higher BMI and, on CT, more skeletal muscle were associated with better survival, while more fat within muscle was associated with worse survival.