<b><i>Background:</i></b> Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease, and swallowing difficulties may occur as the disease progresses. Dysphagia has many consequences, such as aspiration and pneumonia. In particular, in the advanced stage, approximately 70% of the causes of death in AD involve aspiration pneumonia. Therefore, it is vital to assess the presence or absence of dysphagia in AD. <b><i>Objective:</i></b> This study aims to describe swallowing difficulty across the stages of AD. <b><i>Methods:</i></b> Thirty-five AD patients were evaluated. The Mini-Mental State Examination was conducted. A bedside water swallow test (BWST) and the Eating Assessment Tool (EAT-10) were administered. Finally, fiberoptic endoscopic evaluation of swallowing was used to evaluate residual, aspiration and penetration conditions. <b><i>Results:</i></b> EAT-10 scores, BWST results, and penetration-aspiration status were statistically significantly different according to AD stage (<i>p</i> &#x3c; 0.05). Among all patients, 74.3% had residue, 25.7% had penetration, and 2.9% had aspiration. <b><i>Conclusions:</i></b> This study has demonstrated that swallowing dysfunction begins at a mild stage and progressively worsens toward the advanced stage in patients with AD. At all stages of AD, residue was observed, and this poses a risk for the development of penetration-aspiration. Therefore, it is necessary to evaluate the early dysphagia of individuals.

One of the most important complications of thyroid surgery is inferior laryngeal nerve injury. Variations of inferior laryngeal nerve may increase the risk of iatrogenic injury. Coexistence of ipsilateral nonrecurrent laryngeal nerve and recurrent laryngeal nerve is a very rare variation, and sufficient data are not available on the anatomical and functional relationship of the 2 branches and probable clinical outcomes resulting from the injury of one of them. Herein, we present a case with coexistence of nonrecurrent laryngeal nerve and ipsilateral recurrent laryngeal nerve and discuss the clinical importance of this rare variation.

Purpose This study aimed to evaluate whether there was a significant change in the laryngeal cancer stage before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods This retrospective cohort study was conducted to evaluate the data of patients who operated due to laryngeal cancer in a tertiary referral hospital’s ear, nose, and throat (ENT) department between June 2018 and 2021. The patients were included at the same period of the years to rule out any seasonal changes. The basic characteristic, tumor localization, and TNM stage of the patients were compared. Results 97 patients were operated due to laryngeal cancer during the time period reviewed. 57 (58.8%) patients were operated before and 40 (41.2%) after the COVID-19 pandemic. When comparing the patients before and after the COVID-19 pandemic period, the mean age significantly differed between the study groups that older age was observed in patients who admitted before the COVID-19 pandemic (62.8 ± 6.5 vs. 57.3 ± 6.8, p < 0.001). Regarding the TNM classification, the patients in the after COVID-19 pandemic group had higher rates of T4 stage laryngeal cancer compared to before COVID-19 pandemic group (12 (30%) vs. 4 (7%), p : 0.003). Conclusion Younger patients have operated after the COVID-19 pandemic, and the patients were presented with larger tumor sizes. The pandemic may increase the time between diagnosis and surgery in laryngeal cancer patients.

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There are several thyroid gland developmental anomalies such as presence of a pyramidal lobe, absence of the lateral lobes, absence of the isthmus or incomplete isthmus, and significantly asymmetric lateral lobes. The absence or agenesis of the isthmus is a rare condition (1%). In this report, we present a case with Hashimoto thyroiditis and thyroid gland anomalies that consist of thyroglossal duct remnant and absence of the isthmus. Furthermore, an anomaly in the parathyroid gland location and morphologic anomaly as a cystic parathyroid gland were seen in our case.