Visual Disturbance Ocurring Long After Surgery in Cases of Paranasal Sinusitis

Abstract

Eighty seven patients with paranasal sinus disease accompanied by ophthalmologic disturbance except for injury or tumors, who had previous operation in the paranasal sinuses more than 5 years earlier, were reviwed.
The average age of the patients was 47 years. Most of them had complaints periocular swelling, impaired vision, exophthalmu and so on. About a half of them had visited other departments such as ophthalmological dept. at the beginning. The mean interval since the previous surgery in the paranasal sinus was 17 years. The focus of the visual disturbance was found in the ethmoid sinus in most cases. The prognosis was good in the patients when the surgery treatment had been carried out at the early stage within 3 weeks since the onset of visual disturbance, when the examination of the ocular fundus had revealed intact or when the origin of the disease had been a mucocele.