Effect of Functional Endoscopic Sinus Surgery on Mucociliary Clearance in Patients of Chronic Rhinosinusitis

Abstract

Introduction: Mucociliary clearance is a nonspecific defense mechanism that removes mucus and other materials from the nose and lungs. During functional endoscopic sinus surgery (FESS) sometimes there is damage to a lot of healthy sinonasal mucosa. This study was carried out to measure the outcome of mucociliary clearance test before and after FESS. Materials and methods: Study group included 44 patients diagnosed with chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) posted for FESS. Mucociliary clearance testing was performed with saccharine pellets. Observations: The age of patients ranged between 10 and 80 years with 25% between 20 and 30 years and 20% between 30 and 40 years of age. Forty percent of patients had bilateral nasal obstruction as the primary nasal complaint. Nasal discharge was seen in 30% of patients. One-third of patients had complete loss of smell. It was observed that the mean time taken for the concentration of saccharine appreciation in the oropharynx for mucociliary clearance preoperative was 58 minutes. Postoperatively at 6 weeks, it was 14 minutes and 12 minutes at 10 weeks. Discussion and conclusion: Mucociliary clearance as one of the parameters of nasal physiology was evaluated in the patients using saccharine test. Our study revealed after comparing the results in the postoperative period, the percentage was raised from 70% improvement at the 6th week to 85% at the 10th postoperative week. In our study, we saw that the saccharine test was easy to perform, saccharine was easily available, and it was cost-effective and could be applied to all patients of CRS to assess nasal physiology.