The submucosal approach influences long-term outcomes of refractory obstructive rhinitis: A prospective study and a STROBE analysis

OBJECTIVE

The surgical approach to refractory hypertrophy of the inferior turbinates is the main therapeutic choice in the management of its symptoms. Although submucosal approaches have demonstrated efficacy, long-term results are debated in the literature and show variable stability. Therefore, we compared the long-term outcomes of three submucosal turbinoplasty methods with regard to the efficacy and stability managing the respiratory disorders.

DESIGN

Multicenter prospective controlled study. A computer-generated table was used to allocate participants to the treatment.

SETTING

Two teaching and university medical centers.

METHODS

We used the EQUATOR network for guidelines describing design, conduct, and reporting of studies and searched the references of these guidelines to identify further relevant publications reporting adequate study protocols. Patients with persistent bilateral nasal obstruction due to lower turbinate hypertrophy were prospectively recruited from our ENT units. Participants were randomly assigned to each treatment and then underwent symptom assessment by visual analog scales, endoscopic assessment at baseline and 12, 24 and 36 months after treatment.

RESULTS

Of the 189 patients with bilateral persistent nasal obstruction initially assessed, 105 met the study requirements; 35 were located in the MAT group, 35 in the CAT group and 35 in the RAT group. Nasal discomfort was significantly reduced after 12 months with all the methods. The MAT group presented better outcomes for all VAS scores at the 1-year follow-up, greater stability at the 3-year follow-up for VAS results (p < 0.001 in all cases) and lower disease recurrence (5/35; 14.28 %). At the 3-year follow-up intergroup analysis, a statistically significant difference was confirmed except for RAA scores (H = 2.88; p = 0.236). Rhinorrhea (r = -0.400; p < 0.001) was demonstrated as a predictive factor of 3-year recurrence, while sneezing (r = -0.25; p = 0.011), and operative time needed (r = -0.23; p = 0.016) did not reach statistical significance.

CONCLUSIONS

Long-term symptomatic stability varies depending on the turbinoplasty method used. MAT demonstrated greater efficacy in controlling nasal symptoms, presenting better stability in reducing turbinate size and nasal symptoms. In contrast, radiofrequency techniques presented a higher rate of disease recurrence both symptomatically and endoscopically.

Systematic Review of Surgical Interventions for Inferior Turbinate Hypertrophy

Background

Various surgical interventions exist for treatment of inferior turbinate hypertrophy (ITH). Though mucosal-sparing techniques are generally preferred, there is lack of consensus on the optimal technique.

Objective

This systematic review sought to evaluate the evidence for treatment of bilateral nasal obstruction via inferior turbinate reduction (ITR) and provide a meta-analysis of expected results of various techniques.

Methods

PubMed, Scopus, Cochrane Library databases were queried to include articles describing surgical treatment for ITH. Exclusion criteria were concurrent nasal procedures or non-mucosal ITH. Primary outcomes included visual analog scale for nasal obstruction, nasal cavity volume by acoustic rhinometry, and resistance by anterior rhinomanometry. Subgroup analyses assessed outcomes by rhinitis diagnosis and length of follow-up, and radiofrequency ablation (RFA) was compared to microdebrider-assisted turbinoplasty (MAIT).

Results

A total of 1870 studies were identified with 62 meeting inclusion criteria. Reported techniques included turbinectomy, submucosal resection, RFA, MAIT, laser, or electrocautery. All techniques demonstrated significant improvements in nasal obstruction using the visual analog scale. Further comprehensive physiologic data for RFA, MAIT, and laser was available and, compared to baseline, these techniques resulted in significant improvements in nasal resistance, nasal cavity volume, and nasal airflow. Six studies directly compared RFA and MAIT with statistically similar results on VAS, nasal cavity volume, and resistance with median follow-up time of 3.5 months. Assessment of VAS congestion over time reveals peak benefit is achieved between 3–6 months follow-up.

Conclusions

All reviewed ITR techniques improve patient-reported nasal obstruction. RFA and MAIT provide comparable improvements in patient-reported and physiologic nasal airflow outcomes and while benefits are sustained long-term, the peak benefit for both techniques appears to be achieved within the first year.

Epipharyngeal Abrasive Therapy (EAT) Has Potential as a Novel Method for Long COVID Treatment

COVID-19 often causes sequelae after initial recovery, referred to collectively as long COVID. Long COVID is considered to be caused by the persistence of chronic inflammation after acute COVID-19 infection. We found that all long COVID patients had residual inflammation in the epipharynx, an important site of coronavirus replication, and some long COVID symptoms are similar to those associated with chronic epipharyngitis. Epipharyngeal abrasive therapy (EAT) is a treatment for chronic epipharyngitis in Japan that involves applying zinc chloride as an anti-inflammatory agent to the epipharyngeal mucosa. In this study, we evaluated the efficacy of EAT for the treatment of long COVID. The subjects in this study were 58 patients with long COVID who were treated with EAT in the outpatient department once a week for one month (mean age = 38.4 ± 12.9 years). The intensities of fatigue, headache, and attention disorder, which are reported as frequent symptoms of long COVID, were assessed before and after EAT using the visual analog scale (VAS). EAT reduced inflammation in the epipharynx and significantly improved the intensity of fatigue, headache, and attention disorder, which may be related to myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). These results suggest that EAT has potential as a novel method for long COVID treatment.