Does congenital nasal septal deviation have an influence on the blood count?

Abstract

Aim: To investigate the impact of chronic hypoxia due to congenital septal deviation on the blood count. Materials and methods: The study was retrospective and included 213 patients of both sexes, 141 patients in the study group and 72 controls. The study group consisted of patients with congenital septal deviation. They were healthy and did not have additional obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) and any other kind of disease nor were taking medications that could have an influence on the blood count. Patients were divided into groups according to their smoking, alcohol, and drug habits. Septal deviations were classified using Mladina classification. In testing blood count the count of red blood cells, hemoglobin, hematocrit, and number of platelets were considered. Results: In the tested group, there were 63.83% of men and 36.17% of women. The median age was 32. The results of the blood count of the patients who were operated because of the marked septal deviation did not differ from the results of the blood count of the control group. There was no statistically significant difference even in one parameter: Red blood cells count, hemoglobin, hematocrit, and platelets count. Conclusion: Nasal septal deviation, which is operated at the ear, nose, and throat (ENT) departments, is mostly a problem of quality-of-life. It affects patient’s everyday living and disturbs him/her in doing their daily activities. However, serious consequences that affect the blood count and could have an impact on the patient’s other systems could not been seen. Clinical significance: This work is important because of the increasing number of studies that are being carried out, which are attempting to find a correlation between chronic hypoxia due to septal deviation and cardiovascular diseases. With this study, we wanted to show that, in simple cases of nasal septal deviation, there does not exist marked chronic hypoxia that could have an impact on the blood count, specifically in the number of platelets and red blood cells.