A Prospective Study of Different Methods of Inferior Turbinate Reduction.

INTRODUCTION: All the functions of nasal cavities are performed through mucosa and contours of the turbinates. Hypertrophied inferior turbinate is one of the major and common causes of nasal obstruction. In these patients nasal obstruction is relieved by inferior turbinate reduction. Many procedures on turbinate reduction have been described earlier.

AIM: To compare and evaluate the better method for inferior turbinate reduction among submucosal diathermy using monopolar cautery and bipolar cautery, complete turbinectomy, inj. sodium tetradecylsulphate infiltration.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: Eighty patients of either sex between 17-50 years of age having inferior turbinate hypertrophy were included in the study. The patients were divided into four groups with 20 patients in each group. Each group had 20 patients. Group A was subjected to submucosal diathermy using monopolar cautery, Group B to bipolar cautery, Group C to complete inferior turbinectomy and group D to injection sodium tetradecylsulphate. Patients were assessed for nasal patency and symptomatic relief, postoperative bleeding, pain, crusting and synachiae. Follow up was done on 7th day, 21st day and 3rd month postoperatively. Statistical analysis was carried out using IBM SPSS Version 20.0 for windows. Mean and standard deviations were calculated for quantitative data, for categorical variables frequencies and percentages were calculated, within the group comparisons were done with paired t-tests.

RESULTS: The mean reduction in postoperative nasal obstruction was found to be maximum with bipolar cautery when compared with the other modalities and this difference was found to be statistically significant (p<0.001). Bipolar cautery was found to be associated with minimum after effects when compared to other modalities except for postoperative pain which was found more in the patients operated by the bipolar cautery method.

CONCLUSION: We found inferior turbinate reduction using bipolar cautery was better and safe method, when compared to monopolar cautery, complete turbinectomy and inj. sodium tetradecylsulphate, however further studies are required with larger sample size.