digitalization and technological innovation, the two fundamental cornerstones on which the action of the Strategic Directorate of the Local Health Authority of Frosinone is based, for local healthcare, close to citizens, has recently equipped the Santa Scolastica di Cassino with pediatric audiometry, for the second level screening of children from 0 to 12 years of age.
An innovative system thanks to which the child audiology service of Polo Ospedaliero Cassinate is now a fundamental point of reference for families in the province and its neighbouring territories.
In the first seven months of activity, 215 audiological visits, 150 behavioural audiometrics, 180 impedenzometrics, 100 TEOAEs, 100 ABRs and A-ABRs and 50 phyrolaryngoscopies and paediatrics were performed.
Several chronic otitis and obstructive syndromes of children, of medium-severe magnitude, treated pharmacologically, were found by the team of doctors coordinated by the Director of the UOC ENT Cassino Dr. Eugenio Maria Giangrande.
Other children, on the other hand, required surgical treatment, performed at the same ORL Operating Unit of Cassino, which gave excellent results both at the respiratory and audiological level.
Soon the service will be enriched with a speech therapist for the early diagnosis of speech disorders, to support the work of the service manager Dr. Renato Pittiglio and Dr. Tiziana Celani.
The Cassino ENT department, which in the COVID period has always worked without suspending any activity (surgeries, operating room, 24-hour availability), relaunches with thyroidectomy operations.
Goiter in our province is an endemic disease and for years patients have been forced to go to interregional or national hospital facilities. For some time, on the other hand, thyroid surgery has been carried out brilliantly and effectively in Cassino in the ENT department, in close collaboration with internal endocrinologists and the Bio-Medical Campus that sees Dr. Giangrande himself among the teachers.
In the last three months, 10 total thyroidectomy operations were performed, of which the peculiarity is that 8 were represented by goiters and neoplasms immersed in the rib cage, overcoming the jugulum, to the satisfaction of patients.
Complex equipment made available by the General Management also allows advanced diagnoses for the treatment of Sleep Apnea Syndrome, a serious pathology that has been on the rise in recent years. For this dysfunction, approximately 30 nasal-palatal surgeries have been performed in the last 6 months.
About 60, on the other hand, underwent oncological surgery on the skin of the skull. In 20 of these, it was necessary to perform reconstructive plastic surgery with grafts or flaps of various types.
In the Santa Scolastica Hospital, the paediatric surgical activity of the upper airways is divided, in collaboration with Paediatrics and the Division of Anaesthesia and Resuscitation, with dedicated courses and sessions. In the meantime, routine interventions continue, including nasosinus endoscopy, septoplasty, microlaryngoscopy for early diagnosis of laryngeal cancer and Day Surgery has reopened, allowing a faster disposal of waiting lists.
Soon there will be the opening of an Advanced Vestibology and Polysomnography section.
Also important is the close collaboration with the resuscitation of Sora which, just recently, allowed an intervention on a 240 kg patient, a proven collaboration for patients at other risk and with particular anatomical difficulties.
By Dr. Eugenio Maria Giangrande Director of the UOC ENT Cassino
