A balloon was used to widen the frontal sinus opening and mucus spontaneously started draining out-and the untreated ethmoid sinuses also cleared after the frontal sinus disease resolved.
Explore This Issue
September 2009Dr. Kuhn also reported good results using balloons in office procedures. He helped lead a study of drug-eluting balloon catheter-like spacers. They were inserted into 22 ethmoid sinuses of 13 patients and were left for either 14 or 28 days. They were filled with 0.31 mL of 40 mg/mL of triamcinolone.
Patients reported SNOT-20 scores that were 1.12 points lower after the procedure than before. Scores on the Lund-MacKay scale test were 1.22 points lower. Both were significant results. There were no major complications in any of the patients.
Keep Goals in Mind
Ultimately, surgeons should step back and reconsider their goals, said Bradley F. Marple, MD, Professor of Otolaryngology at University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas.
Maybe we shouldn’t be looking for ways to recruit more patients for surgery, he said, but maybe we should be looking for ways to select the patients who would benefit from surgery and provide the right surgical intervention.
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