Abstract
Nasal obstruction is one of the major symptoms of chronic sinusitis. Improvement of nasal patency might be one of the important factors for objective evaluation of endoscopic sinus surgery (ESS). In this study, we examined whether assessments of nasal patency provided objective evaluations of the efficacy of ESS.
Nasal patency was measured using rhinomanometry (RMM) and acoustic rhinometry (AR). The factors evaluated for nasal patency were nasal resistance in RMM and cross-sectional area (MCA) and 0.5 cm nasal volume in AR.
Two hundred and twelve patients undergoing nasal surgeries and paranasal sinus surgeries, including 40 nasal septoplasties and/or conchotomies, 11 nasal polypectomies, 11 endoscopic mono-sinus surgeries, 68 endoscopic poly-sinuses surgeries and 84 endoscopic pansinectomies, were recruited for this study. For nasal septoplasties and/or conchotomies, bilateral poly-sinuses surgeries and bilateral pansinectomies, all evaluated nasal patency factors were significantly improved, except MCA in bilateral pansinectomy. In comparisons between uncombined and combined surgery with septoplasties and/or conchotomies and nasal polypectomy, even uncombined surgery demonstrated significant improvement in nasal patency.
The results clearly showed that ESS provides significant, reliable improvements in nasal patency measured using RMM and AR. RMM demonstrated statistically significant reductions in nasal resistance, while AR showed significant increases in the minimum cross sectional area and 0.5 cm nasal volume. We conclude that RMM and AR are reliable tools for evaluation of operative outcomes in endoscopic sinus surgery patients.
