Tohoku university school of medicine

There are three main research groups (i.e., Hearing, Head and neck cancer, and Infectious diseases of URT) in the Department of Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery.

Each group focuses on the following themes. (1) Mechanism of inner ear and hearing loss due to its dysfunction (2) Rehabilitation of hearing by auditory brain stem implants in bilateral deafness due to NF2 (3) Allergy and infection of the upper respiratory tract (4) Pathogenesis of head and neck cancer and function preservation treatments (5) Treatment of middle ear cholesteatoma (6) Treatment of intractable patulous Eustachian tube (7) Treatment of petrous apex lesion and skull base disorders.

These researches resulted in the introduction of several new clinical practice in Tohoku University Hospital, including hearing preservation partial labyrinthectomy approach for petrous bone cholesteatoma, patulous Eustachian tube plug (PEP:Kobayashi), etc.. For these reasons, quite a few patients are referred from other areas of Japan and from foreign countries.

1)Acute otitis media associated with cytomegalovirus infection in infants and children. International Journal of Pediatric Otorhinolaryngology 71:1443-1447 2007

2)Audiometry with Nasally Presented Masking Noise: Novel Diagnostic Method for Patulous Eustachian Tube. Otology & Neurotology 27：596-599 2006

3)Plasma-membrane-associated sialidase (NEU3) differentially regulates integrin -mediated cell proliferation through laminin- and fibronectin-derived signalling. The Biochemical journal / Biochemical Society 394：647-656 2006

4)Neuromagnetic evaluation of binaural unmasking. NeuroImage 25：684-689 2005

5)Mutation Detection of GJB2 Using IsoCode and Real-Time Quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction With SYBR Green I Dye for Newborn Hearing Screening. Laryngoscope 114：1299-1304 2004

Inner ear dysfunction, Auditory brainstem or midbrain implant, Middle ear cholesteatoma, Intractable patulous Eustachian tube, Patulous Eustachian tube, Petrous apex lesion and skull base disorders, Allergy and infection of the upper respiratory tract, Pathogenesis of head and neck cancer, Dysphagia and voice disorders