Sinonasal quality‐of‐life before and after endoscopic, endonasal, minimally invasive pituitary surgery

Abstract

Endoscopic, endonasal, minimally invasive pituitary surgery (MIPS) has proven to be safe and efficacious. However, there are few data that assess the health-related or sinonasal-specific quality-of-life (QoL) of those undergoing MIPS. Our hypothesis is that patients undergoing MIPS do not have significantly different sinus disability or change in QoL after surgery compared to prior to surgery. This is a retrospective review of patients undergoing MIPS between 2002 and 2009. Rhinosinusitis Disability Index (RSDI) scores, patient demographics, tumor characteristics, surgical outcomes, and intraoperative/postoperative complications were recorded. Preoperative and postoperative mean RSDI scores and the mean absolute change in RSDI were calculated with 95% confidence intervals (CIs). One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) compared RSDI scores between different tumor subgroups. A total of 50 patients completed the RSDI preoperatively and postoperatively. Analyses revealed no significant difference between preoperative and postoperative scores across all domains (p = 0.84). When the cohort was stratified into functional vs nonfunctional tumor types there was no significant difference between the 2 groups (p = 0.88). Data showed no statistically significant change in RSDI scores postoperatively in all groups. These data show that MIPS with appropriate postoperative care results in little or no long-term sinonasal quality of life defects.