Control of bleeding following functional endoscopic sinus surgery using carboxy-methylated cellulose packing

Abstract

The aim of this study is to evaluate the haemostatic effect of carboxy-methylated cellulose (CMC) nasal packing following functional endoscopic sinus surgery (FESS). The design includes an investigator-initiated, randomized, single-blinded, controlled, prospective clinical study. A bilateral FESS procedure was performed on 41 patients. At the end of the operation, one side was randomly filled with CMC nasal packing, the other side remained without packing. The patients were blinded to the side of nasal packing and were postoperatively examined on the 1st day, after 2 and 4 weeks and the extent of the postoperative bleeding was quantified with a clinical grading system. Even though there were slightly more postoperative bleedings reported for the non-packed sides as compared to the CMC-packed sides, these differences were at no point statistically significant within the monitored postoperative period of 4 weeks. In the examined collective, the CMC packing investigated did not statistically prove to have an effect on bleeding control in this study design.