A retrospective study was carried out to determine the prevalence of abnormality in the paranasal sinuses in a British population having magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans for neurological signs and symptoms. The T2-weighted scans of 130 patients were studied. Abnormalities in the paranasal sinuses show as high signal on the T2-weighted scans and thus are clearly seen. Abnormalities included mucosal thickening, fluid levels, sinus opacification and retention cysts/polyps. Of the patients studied, 49.2 per cent showed one or more abnormality. Mucosal thickening was the most common abnormality noted and the ethmoid sinuses the most commonly affected.

A 37 year old woman with secondary infertility had been advised by her general practitioner to record her basal body temperature vaginally. One morning she presented to a casualty department complaining that she could not remove the thermometer. Vaginal examination and a radiograph of the pelvis (figure) suggested that the thermometer was in the bladder. This was confirmed at cytoscopy, when the thermometer was removed under general anaesthesia with stone crushing forceps whose jaws were shod with rubber cylinders cut from a latex catheter. The patient made a full recovery and was discharged the next day.Inadvertent insertion of a thermometer into the bladder during recording of vaginal temperature has been reported many times before, and we think it time that doctors stopped advising women to record their basal temperatures Vaginally: oral recording is safe and

A cricopharyngeal myotomy was performed under unilateral superficial cervical plexus, pharyngeal plexus and glossopharyngeal nerve blocks. This procedure has not previously been described as being performed under regional anaesthesia. To our knowledge, a pharyngeal plexus block has not previously been reported. Whilst the cricopharyngeal myotomy was successfully completed, problems did occur. Coughing and swallowing were disruptive to the deep surgical dissection. In addition, the patient experienced pain in the ear and jaw despite having no pain in the surgical wound itself.