Abstract
In recent years acoustic rhinometry has become well established as a means of better understanding nasal pathophysiology, however, the direction of the sound waves of the acoustic rhinometer in the nasal cavity is still unclear. To accurately determine sound wave direction during acoustic rhinometry in the nasal cavity, we compared the cross-sectional areas of adult-size artificial models of the nose measured by 3D-CT and acoustic rhinometric measurements. We used five hypotheses for sectional direction in the nasal cavity for estimation the sectional area of the nasal model by 3D-CT. Those hypotheses were 1) perpendicular to parallel with the nasal floor, 2) perpendicular to linear direction of the nozzle of the acoustic rhinometer, 3) perpendicular to the consecutive line presumed center of the nose, 4) perpendicular to line of presumable main respiratory air currency in the nose, and 5) combined line between top and bottom of the cavity equivalently deferred from the anterior nostril. The CT estimation under the last hypothesis demonstrated the most approximate values to acoustic rhinometric assessments, and the sound wave direction of the acoustic rhinometry might be appropriate in the nose.
