nasal airway obstruction Research Papers (original) (raw)

To propose a new surgical technique for fixing the nasal septum to the midline, for long term prevention of nasal obstruction, in secondary and select cases of primary septoplasty. Patterns of septal deformity, materials used for titanium... more

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- Titanium, Rhinoplasty, nasal airway obstruction, Septoplasty

Background: Various forms of surgical techniques to reduce the size of an enlarged inferior turbinate are in practice being performed. Objectives: To compare the results in term of safety and effectiveness of submucousal diathermy with partial inferior turbinectomy in respect to pain, bleeding, crusting, synechiae, and nasal breathing. Methods: Study of 26 patients, attended the ENT department, Al-Yarmouk Teaching Hospital, Baghdad, from January 2014 to January 2015, whom clinically diagnosed with inferior turbinate hypertrophy results in nasal obstruction, were included, and divided equally and randomly into 2 groups. Thirteen patients were submitted to submucosal diathermy of inferior turbinate (group A) and 13 patients were submitted to partial inferior turbinectomy (group B). Results: The current study showed that, in group A: (7.6%) had severe pain, while in group B: (23.07%) had severe pain. Bleeding, in group A: (15.38%) had nasal bleeding, while in group B: (30.77%) had nasal bleeding. For nasal crusts in group A: (30.76%) had crusts compared to (84.59%) in group B. Synechiae was (0%) in both groups. Nasal breathing in group A: (61.53%) had excellent improvement compared to 77% in group B. Conclusions: Submucosal diathermy is safer in respect of pain, bleeding, and crusting, while partial inferior turbinectomy, it is more effective in the improvement of nasal breathing.

- by Mohammed R Dawood
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- nasal airway obstruction

Virtual surgery planning based on computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations has the potential to improve surgical outcomes for nasal airway obstruction patients, but the benefits of virtual surgery planning must outweigh the risks of radiation exposure. Cone beam computed tomography (CT) scans represent an attractive imaging modality for virtual surgery planning due to lower costs and lower radiation exposures compared with conventional CT scans. However, to minimize the radiation exposure, the cone beam CT sinusitis protocol sometimes images only the nasal cavity, excluding the nasopharynx. The goal of this study was to develop an ideal-ized nasopharynx geometry for accurate representation of outlet boundary conditions when the nasopharynx geometry is unavailable. Anatomically accurate models of the nasopharynx created from 30 CT scans were intersected with planes rotated at different angles to obtain an average geometry. Cross sections of the ide-alized nasopharynx were approximated as ellipses with cross‐sectional areas and aspect ratios equal to the average in the actual patient‐specific models. CFD simulations were performed to investigate whether nasal airflow patterns were affected when the CT‐based nasopharynx was replaced by the idealized nasopharynx in 10 nasal airway obstruction patients. Despite the simple form of the idealized geometry, all biophysical variables (nasal resistance, airflow rate, and heat fluxes) were very similar in the idealized vs patient‐specific models. The results confirmed the expectation that the nasopharynx geometry has a minimal effect in the nasal airflow patterns during inspiration. The idealized nasopharynx geometry will be useful in future CFD studies of nasal airflow based on medical images that exclude the nasopharynx.