Drug-Eluting Sinus Stent for Chronic Rhinosinusitis

Abstract

Chronic rhinosinusitis is one of the most common surgical disease in otorhinolaryngology field. Since the introduction of functional endoscopic sinus surgery in Korea in the early 1990s, the development of surgical equipments and techniques has led to a dramatic improvement in surgical outcomes. However, achieving good surgical outcomes with sinus surgery depends on postoperative care for avoiding local complications, such as scar formation, lateralization of middle turbinate, formation of synechia, stenosis of ostium, and mucosal polypoid change. Various medications and methods have been used to address these problems. Several types of drug-eluting stents have been used since the early 2000s to address these problems. There were a lot of researches on off-label local drug releasing system combining nasal packing material, topical medication, and ethmoid sinus was a main target lesion. The combination of steroids such as dexamethasone, triamcinolone and absorbable nasal packing material have been reported. Since 2010, products have been developed that are capable of sustained and constant drug outflow and are being used in clinical practice. There are still some problems to be solved, such as stent migration, not enough volume of drug in stents, and the high price of device, but if these problems are solved in the future, they may be more widely used in clinical practice.