New Insight into Surgical Treatment of Chronic Sinusitis
Study Objective: To assess the efficacy of balloon sinus dilation (BSD) in treating chronic siunusitis. Materials and Methods: Between 2011 and 2014, we operated on 120 patients with chronic sinusitis. The main group included 60 patients. Thirty of them had problems with their paranasal sinuses; these patients underwent only BSD. Another 30 patients had chronic sinusitis, nasal-septum deviation, and hypertrophic rhinitis. They underwent BSD, septoplasty, and bilateral inferior conservative turbinotomy. In the control group, patients had endoscopic sinusotomy alone (n = 30) or in combination with septoplasty and bilateral inferior conservative turbinotomy. Results: We compared the rate of mucociliary clearance in the two groups and noticed that in the main group, this parameter recovered significantly faster and remained unchanged over the next two years of follow-up. Computed tomography performed 1 year after surgery clearly showed that the natural ostia of the paranasal sinuses were patent. The improvement of the SNOT-20 scores in the control group was significantly less rapid than in the main group. In the control group, more patients had inflammation changes in the mucous membrane of natural ostia of the paranasal sinuses. Conclusion: Compared to conventional surgical methods used to treat paranasal-sinus inflammation, BSD is safer and easier technique