Acute sinusitis in daily clinical practice

A Social Media Quality Review of Popular Sinusitis Videos on TikTok

OBJECTIVE

Social media may inform health care decisions among younger patient populations. TikTok is a social media platform that allows users to post short-form videos. This study aimed to assess the quality of sinusitis-related videos on TikTok.

STUDY DESIGN

We searched TikTok on January 29, 2023, for sinusitis-related hashtags: #sinusitis, #sinus, #sinusinfection.

SETTING

Internet.

METHODS

The number of views/shares per day, uploader type (nonmedical influencer, lay individual, and medical professional) content categories (medical advice, marketing, comedy, and lifestyle/acceptability), and content type (educational vs factual) were collected. The Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool for Audiovisual Material and Journal of the American Medical Association criteria score was used to measure understandability, actionability, and reliability. The Global Quality Scale (GQS) was used to evaluate the quality of videos; the harm/benefit score was used to evaluate causative effects. Analyses were performed using analysis of variance (α = .05).

RESULTS

There were 221 videos identified, which garnered over 300 million views and 1 million shares. Almost half of the videos were published by nonmedical influencers. When controlling for covariates, nonmedical influencers and lay uploaders were more likely to have harmful harm/benefit scores, less understandable videos, and lower GQS scores compared to medical professionals. Less than half of videos posted by nonmedical influencers categorized as educational were factual (46.7%); lay individuals and medical professionals had higher rates of factual educational content (79.9% and 83.7%, respectively).

CONCLUSION

Most nonmedical influencer-posted TikTok videos about sinusitis are inaccurate, despite being portrayed as medical advice/educational. Rhinologists must find modern ways to disseminate true disease-related content via social media to combat medical misinformation.

Sinonasal Orbital Apex Syndrome, Horner Syndrome and Pterygopalatine Fossa Infection: A Case Report and Mini-Review

This paper presents a literature review and a case of an 83-year-old otherwise healthy female patient with a history of recent syncope, a sudden-onset right-sided temporal headache, diplopia, and vision loss. An exam revealed right-sided upper eyelid ptosis, myosis, vision loss, ophthalmoplegia, and a positive relative afferent pupillary defect on the right eye. CT showed sphenoid sinus opacification, eroded lateral sinus wall, Vidian canal, disease extension to the posterior ethmoid air cells, orbital apex, medial orbital wall, and pterygopalatine fossa. An orbital apex syndrome (Jacod's syndrome), Horner syndrome, and pterygopalatine fossa infection were diagnosed due to the acute invasive fungal sinusitis developed from a sphenoid sinus fungal ball. The patient was treated with antimicrobial therapy and transnasal endoscopic surgery twice to decompress the orbital apex, drain the abscess and obtain specimens for analysis. The right-sided ptosis, visual loss, ophthalmoplegia, and headache resolved entirely. No immune or comorbid diseases were identified, microbiological and histopathological analyses were negative, and MRI could not be performed on the presented patient. For that reason, the diagnostic procedure was non-standard. Nevertheless, the treatment outcome of this vision and life-threatening disease was satisfactory. Treating the fungal ball in an older or immunocompromised patient is essential to prevent invasive fungal rhinosinusitis and fatal complications.

[Postviral rhinosinusitis, focus on pathogenetic therapy]

Currently, the problem of acute rhinosinusitis continues to be relevant due to the frequent occurrence of this pathology. A certain difficulty is caused by the differential diagnosis of viral, post-viral and bacterial forms of rhinosinusitis, which carries the risks of irrational therapy. The authors of the article discuss the role of a viral infection in the etiology and pathogenesis of acute rhinosinusitis, the stages in the development of an inflammatory reaction on the mucous membrane of the nose and paranasal sinuses, and the disruption of mucociliary clearance. The authors consider options for the pathogenetic therapy of postviral sinusitis, concluding that the use of local combined preparations containing the mucolytic acetylcysteine and the vasoconstrictor component of tuaminoheptane sulfate is effective.