ENT and Allergy Specialists named Main Line's Top Docs... Again!

For the 10th year our physicians have been named Top Docs in their field. Dr's Broker and Swanson for Otolaryngology/ Ear, Nose and Throat and Dr Actor for Allergy.


Dr Broker has also been named the single best ENT doctor by Main Line Today Magazine's Patient's Choice Poll.

Congratulations.

Climate change

As i sat here at the beach today, at the end of January in 60 degree heat, i couldn't help but wonder why there isn't more outrage and panic over climate change. Are people so stupid as to not understand how this is likely to affect our lives? Can't they see this leading to water and food shortages, conflict and death? Are people so self-centered as to not even care if it affects their own kids as long as they escape the consequences? Even if you are so daft as to believe its all due to "sunspots", why would you not want to try to mitigate the damage when to do nothing is probable suicide?

If we don't at least try, we deserve what we get. But our kids don't.

Bachelorette Tropical Frog Mating Calls

Research by New Orleans scientists showed that female tropical frogs use sophisticated thinking that is on par with humans to distinguish which male is making a noise that she likes. They state that this research will help them understand human hearing and attention disorders. Much like "The Bachelorette", the males all simultaneously compete for the female with mating calls and the female has to figure out which male is making the sound she likes best. Apparently, this requires some big time deductive reasoning that compares subtle differences in the calls.

Read more at http://bit.ly/pPiv7w

Hearing loss experts, hearing aids, tinnitus treatment, Neuromonics.
www.ENTandAllergySpecialists.com

Climate change; Real dangerous. Help?

Unless you live underground in a cave, this past week with temperatures hovering in the 100's should make it obvious that climate change is real. Who's to blame? Frankly I don't care. It doesn't matter if you believe that man had any contribution to it or not. What does matter is that you feel the urgency to do something about it.

First, let me preface what I have to say by giving the website of the US environmental protection agency (http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/). It has a very extensive list of all the science for and against climate change and its effects broken down into various categories. Its an excellent reference for believers and non-believers alike and can move the discussion forward on facts instead of fiction.

So, basically, climate change has already caused drought, famine and war over water and food in Africa (http://m.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/04/drought-east-africa-climate-change?cat=world&type=article ) and is projected to cause more of the same globally. The US department of defense detailed the dangers to the United States in their report (http://1.usa.gov/pebMq3 ).

I don't know about you, but I'm not interested in taking any chances; if there's even a small possibility that I can do something to limit climate change, count me in. So what can you do? Check out the EPA's website (http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/), and call your congressmen today and insist they do something as well.

Brian Broker, MD
www.ENTandAllergySpecialists.com

Hypoallergenic dogs do not exist

This research confirms what I've been telling my patients for years; there's no such thing as a non-allergenic dog. I was willing to concede that certain breeds which shed less might be less allergenic, but apparently I was wrong about that.

You see, its the dander that causes allergy, not the fur. So all those stories about dogs w "human hair" instead of fur that don't produce allergies are not true. As long as the dog has skin, you can be allergic to it.

Interestingly, in this study published in the Journal of Rhinology, even those dogs typically classified as less allergenic produced the same amount of allergy-producing dander as other dogs.

But you can eliminate allergies to dogs with convenient, at-home and shot-free sublingual immunotherapy, aka allergy drops.

Read about the study at http://bit.ly/rjgwg2

Allergy experts. Pediatric and adult. Sublingual immunotherapy, allergy drops.
www.ENTandAllergySpecialists.com

Growing new body parts now reality

Doctors in Sweden last week performed the first transplant of an artificial windpipe made from the patient's own tissue. The patient had cancer of the windpipe that did not respond to radiation treatments. The advantage of this approach is big; the patient does not need to take immunosuppressive drugs to avoid rejecting the transplant since the cells are his own!

The photo above pictures an early version of this developing field of tissue regeneration. Here, a patient's ear cartilage was grown on the back of a mouse. The difference between the ear and the windpipe is that the ear cartilage had to be covered with skin grafts after it was taken from the mouse while the new technology allowed doctors to grow the patient's own tissue right on to the windpipe cartilage. This provides a much better "fit" of the skin over the cartilage and thus a much better function of the windpipe. And the whole process only took two days!

So far the regenerated body parts have been non-mobile (no limbs yet) and non-organs (no livers or spleens yet). But those are not far off. The technology to grow these body parts requires a little more genetic engineering with stem cells, but those experiments are well underway.

Read more about;

the regenerated windpipe at http://bit.ly/p2IdSc

The regenerated ear cartilage at http://bit.ly/nmGmTC

Organ regeneration at http://bit.ly/fbSR5T

www.ENTandAllergySpecialists.com

What's best way to remove tonsils?

Studies show that the "powered intracapsular tonsillectomy (PIT)" is better than the traditional tonsillectomy (TT) in terms of less pain, faster time to normal diet, and less chance of postoperative bleeding.

TT patients typically experience 2 weeks of severe pain, take 10 days to get back to a normal diet and have postoperative bleeding that may require a second surgery to stop in 1 of 300 patients.

Meanwhile PIT patients typically experience 3 to 5 days of moderate pain, get back to a normal diet within 5 days (half on postop day one!), and experience postoperative bleeding in only 1 of 1000 patients.

Other "new" tonsillectomy techniques such as coblation, electrocautery or harmonic scalpel do not come close to these results.

Thus, in the majority of our patients, PIT is the preferred method to remove tonsils.

Board Certified Pediatric Otolaryngologists
www.ENTandAllergySpecialists.com

References;

Title: Safety and efficacy of powered intracapsular tonsillectomy in children: a multi-center retrospective case series.
Author: Solares CA, Koempel JA, Hirose K, Abelson TI, Reilly JS, Cook SP, April MM, Ward RF, Bent JP, Xu M, Koltai PJ.
Journal: Int J Pediatr Otorhinolaryngol; 2005 Jan ; 69(1):21-6.
http://bit.ly/k7CT5b

Title: Powered intracapsular tonsillectomy in the management of recurrent tonsillitis.
Author: Schmidt R, Herzog A, Cook S, O'Reilly R, Deutsch E, Reilly J.
Journal: Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg; 2007 Aug ; 137(2):338-40. PubMed ID: 17666267.
http://bit.ly/iUvwDH