Abstract
Clinically, rhinorrhea presents itself as one of the main symptoms of diseases of the paranasal sinuses and is an important clue in establishing diagnosis and in deciding on the treatment.
Although rhinorrhea has long been studied from various viewpoints, there are very few papers describing the results of rheological studies on it including its detailed physical characteristics.
We have performed a rheological study on 30 specimens of rhinorrhea utilizing cone-plate viscometer, which has been reported to be the most accurate method to detemine physical properties of non-newtonian fluid such as rhinorrhea. The results were as follows:
1) Rhinorrhea is non-newtonian fluid with apparent viscosity depending on shear rate. It gave thixotropy phenomenon and had pseudo-plastic and structural viscosity. Its viscosity curve and fluidity curve formed a hysteresis loop.
2) When comparing our date of rhinorrea with those of sputum reported by Akagami, shear stress, which corresponds to shear rate of each specimen, was higher for rhinorrhea than for sputum.
3) Rhinorrhea was found to have a mean value of about 53 dyn/cm2 by Cone's Ascending Order as studied in 30 specimens in this study.
