Publication:

Prospective study on the functional outcome of septoplasty

Background A thorough assessment of nasal obstruction remains a matter of debate with no accepted subjective and objective measurement tools. The purpose of this study was to use a cost-effective tool for objective assessment of nasal obstruction and compare it with subjective scores.

Methods This was a longitudinal, prospective study conducted at a tertiary care center on patients undergoing septoplasty for deviated nasal septum (DNS) from March 2016 to August 2017. All patients were assessed pre- and post-operatively at 3 months with nasal peak inspiratory flow, sino-nasal outcome test (SNOT-22) and nasal obstruction symptom evaluation (NOSE) questionnaire to determine post-operative improvement and correlation between objective and subjective scores.

Results 64 patients were included in the study with 16 females and 48 males. Male patients had higher peak nasal inspiratory flow (PNIF) score post-operatively. Younger patients (less than 25 years) showed significant subjective improvement compared to older patients post-operatively using NOSE questionnaire. Significant improvement in PNIF, SNOT-22 and NOSE scores post-operatively using paired student-t test. There was moderate correlation between PNIF values and subjective scores before surgery and excellent correlation between the subjective SNOT-22 and NOSE scores before and after surgery.

Conclusions PNIF is a cheap, portable, and convenient method for assessing nasal patency. Subjective and objective scores have good correlation, with improvement in all scores post-surgery. Men may show more objective improvement and early intervention at younger age may provide more subjective improvement.