Endoscopic sinus surgery is effective in treating inflammation of the sinus cavities, reports Alexander C. Chester, MD, in the May issue of the journal Otolaryngology — Head and Neck Surgery. The internist and clinical professor at Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, D.C., says endoscopic surgery is beneficial to patients when standard medical treatment doesn’t resolve symptoms such as nasal obstruction, facial pain, post-nasal discharge, headaches and impaired smell.

Dr. Chester’s team of researchers reviewed 21 published studies involving 2,070 patients with chronic rhinosinusitis who underwent endoscopic sinus surgery. They discovered that all symptoms of the condition demonstrated improvement when compared with their pre-op severity.

Relative symptom relief varies across studies, says Dr. Chester, leading him to pool study results in order to determine if symptoms improve overall and to a similar degree, and to judge if the benefits last. "Our findings offer reassurance that, with minor exceptions, individual symptoms usually improve substantially and similarly following surgery," he explains.

Dr. Chester says his research does not establish that endoscopic sinus surgery is more effective than medically treating chronic rhinosinusitis, but it does give physicians the information they need to advise patients who are weighing the risks and benefits of surgical interventions.

—Daniel Cook