Publication

Abstract : Background: Chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) is diagnosed on the basis of symptoms, nasal endoscopic findings and computed tomography of the paranasal sinuses (CT PNS). Where indicated, functional endoscopic sinus surgery (FESS) is the surgical treatment. Objective: To determine correlations between subjective symptom severity and objective endoscopic and radiologic findings in CRS and to compare these before and after FESS. Materials and methods: Analysis of prospectively collected data of 20 patients undergoing FESS at a tertiary care medical center followed up for a minimum period of 6 months after surgery. RSI questionnaire-based symptom score, Lund-Mackay system-based endoscopic and CT finding scores were recorded preoperatively and at 8 weeks and 6 months postoperatively. Results: Significant positive correlation was noted between the three parameters before surgery, especially endoscopic and radiological scores (r = 0.94 in the latter, p 0.01 in all three). Postoperative improvement was statistically significant for all three parameters, even at the 6 months stage (p 0.001). Postoperative correlations reduced significantly, especially between endoscopic and radiological scores. Conclusion: This study showed the relevance of objective evaluation of routine parameters of CRS, preoperatively. It also confirmed the usefulness of FESS in indicated cases, in terms of statistical improvement of these parameters. However, repeat CT scans and the methods of scoring used by us may not be equally applicable in the long-term postoperative scenario.