Is High Blood Sugar a Risk Factor for Paranasal Sinus Fungus Ball?

Abstract

Objectives: 1) Examine the risk factors for having paranasal sinus fungus ball with high blood sugar. 2) Describe the clinical features of the patients’ diagnoses as paranasal sinus fungus ball (SFB). Methods: A tertiary care hospital based match case-control study was conducted from December 2007 to December 2011. The matching criteria were age and gender. Fifty cases with chronic rhinosinusitis with SFB were identified from medical records, and 45 chronic rhinosinusitis without SFB served as controls. The cases and controls were placed into 3 groups depending on fasting blood sugar (FBS) levels (normal: FBS less than 100 mg/DL; impaired: FBS (100-125 mg/DL); and diabetics: FBS>125 mg/DL). Patients with FBS >100 mg/DL were determined as high blood sugar. Demographic data, clinical symptoms, and findings on imaging were records. The main outcome measure was matched odd ratio and 95% confidence interval of high blood sugar associated with paranasal sinus fungus ball. Results: Patients with high FBS had an odds ratio of 1.15 (95% confidence interval, 0.6-2.19) when compared with patients with normal FBS. Seventy percent of chronic rhinosinusitis with SFB are female, and 94% of SFB are older than 40 years old. The most common presentation is nasal discharge/post-nasal drip (33/50 cases). The maxillary sinus is the most commonly involved sinus (46%), followed by the sphenoid sinus (30%). Conclusions: This study has not found that having high fasting blood sugar is linked with a higher risk of getting fungus ball of paranasal sinuses.