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Objective: To evaluate 1) if air traffic controllers (ATC) perform better than non-air traffic controllers in an open-set speech-in-noise test because of their experience with radio communications, and 2) if high-frequency information (>8000 Hz) substantially improves speech-in-noise perception across populations., Materials and Methods: The control group comprised 28 normal-hearing subjects, and the target group comprised 48 ATCs aged between 19 and 55 years who were native Spanish speakers. The hearing -in-noise abilities of the two groups were characterized under two signal conditions: 1) speech tokens and white noise sampled at 44.1 kHz (unfiltered condition) and 2) speech tokens plus white noise, each passed through a 4th order Butterworth filter with 70 and 8000 Hz low and high cutoffs (filtered condition). These tests were performed at signal-to-noise ratios of +5, 0, and -5-dB SNR., Results: The ATCs outperformed the control group in all conditions. The differences were statistically significant in all cases, and the largest difference was observed under the most difficult conditions (-5 dB SNR). Overall, scores were higher when high-frequency components were not suppressed for both groups, although statistically significant differences were not observed for the control group at 0 dB SNR., Conclusion: The results indicate that ATCs are more capable of identifying speech in noise. This may be due to the effect of their training. On the other hand, performance seems to decrease when the high frequency components of speech are removed, regardless of training.

Objective: Our objective was to perform a retrospective analysis of patients with jugulotympanic paragangliomas. We present the results according to the surgical approach applied in each case., Materials and Methods: This retrospective study presents the findings in 21 patients with jugulotympanic paragangliomas who were observed and treated in our department over a 12-year period (1999 to 2011). We performed a general otolaryngology exam, systemic evaluation and radiological exam. Surgical treatment was performed in 20 cases out of 21. In 1 case, treatment with stereotactic radiosurgery was carried out., Results: The surgical approaches were: endaural, retroauricular transcanal, radical or modified mastoidectomy through facial recess and infratemporal fossa approach. Preoperative embolization was used in 12 cases. In all cases the diagnosis of paraganglioma was confirmed. The most frequent postoperative complications found were transitory palsy of the facial nerve, sensorineural hearing loss, imbalance, paralysis of the cranial nerves IX and XI and salivary fistula. No recurrences were found after 12 years of follow-up. One case of persistence was found in the case treated with radiosurgery., Conclusions: In our series surgery was found to be the elective therapy for patients with paraganglioma, with no recurrences after 12 years of follow-up. Preoperative embolization decreases surgery time and intraoperative bleeding. Stereotactic Radiotherapy cannot eliminate the tumour.., (Copyright © 2010 Elsevier España, S.L. All rights reserved.)