Frequency of fungal infections in nasal polypi.

Abstract

Objectives: Determine the frequency of fungal infections in nasal polypi. Study Design: Cross sectional study. Setting: Histopathology Department at Shaikh Zayed Hospital Lahore. Period: Six months from 12/2/2015 to 12/8/2015. Material & Methods: Two hundred surgical resections/biopsies using 95% confidence level, with 7% margin of error were collected. Formalin fixed specimens of patients of both genders and 10- 60 years of age with nasal polyps received after surgical procedure in department of ENT. Grossing and processing was done. Hematoxyin & Eosin stained sections were examined by two consultant Histopathologists independently. The presence of fungal hyphae was confirmed by PAS and Silver stains. The study was approved by College of Physicians & Surgeons Pakistan. All the data was entered and analyzed by using SPSS version 20. Results: Out of 200 patients all the patients showed the prescence of inflammatory cells in polyps (100%) with predominantly eosinophils in their submucosa (82%). Fungus was present in 48 cases (24%) most of them were in the age group of 42-57 years (13%) and 31(15.5%) patients having BMI <30 and 17(8.5%) having BMI >30 were positive for fungus.30 cases were of Aspergillus (62.5%) and rest 8 were of Mucor (37.5%). The fungus positive cases were more in males (13.5%). 160 of the cases were of unilateral polyps (80%) and 40 were of bilateral polypi (20%). Only 8% of the patients having diabetes had fungal infection. Conclusion: Hence, the frequency of fungal infection in nasal polypi is low with Aspergillus being the commonest pathogen affecting males predominantly.