Effect of functional endoscopic sinus surgery on the symptom profile in chronic rhinosinusitis cases

Abstract

<p class="abstract"><strong>Background:</strong> Chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) is a common chronic disease, that have considerable impact on quality of life, functional and emotional impairments of affected beings. Post-surgical improvement of quality of life indicates the surgical success. Functional endoscopic sinus surgery (FESS) is the dominating surgical procedure for CRS. This study was designed to assess the symptom profile of patient before and after surgery and the complications after FESS in the post-operative period.</p><p class="abstract"><strong>Methods:</strong> A total of 50 cases attending ENT outpatient department with clinical features and investigations suggestive of chronic sinusitis with infective pathology were randomly considered for this study. Cases were assessed for CRS symptoms pre and post operatively using grading symptoms. </p><p class="abstract"><strong>Results:</strong> Common major symptom was nasal obstruction (93.3%, N=28) followed by post nasal drip (83.33%, N=25), purulent nasal discharge (76.66%, N=23), facial pain/pressure (66.66%, N=20) and hyposmia (60%, N=18). None of the patients reported fever and facial congestion or fullness. Post operatively, cases with nasal obstruction (92.8%), purulent nasal discharge (86.9%), facial pain or pressure (85%), headache (81.8%), post nasal drip (84%), ear pain or fullness or pressure (92.8%) and hyposmia (61.1%) showed improvement after FESS at the end of three follow-up.</p><p class="abstract"><strong>Conclusions:</strong> The most common symptom pre operatively was nasal obstruction which also responded best to FESS, along with all the other minor symptoms including headache. The results of this study confirm that FESS is an excellent method of treatment in patients with CRS refractory to medical treatment.</p>