What is functional nasal endoscopic surgery

  Sinusitis and nasal polyps are the most common diseases in rhinology clinics. Due to the destruction of ecological environment and serious air pollution, the incidence of these diseases has been on the rise recently. The main characteristic of this disease is that the lesions often recur and are not easily cured completely. There are many reasons for this, such as the lack of timely and correct treatment during the acute phase, or the inability of conventional methods to control the lesions, resulting in their prolonged existence and recurrent attacks. For chronic sinusitis, treatment is even more difficult, as mucosal hypertrophy, degeneration, polyp hyperplasia, fibrosis or fibrous tangles and the resulting obstruction of ventilation and drainage are often not treatable with medications, and surgical methods are required.  Traditional sinus surgery has been continued for more than a hundred years. Due to the slow progress in the study of the physiological functions of the nasal cavity and sinuses, in addition to the deep sinus surgery site, there has been no breakthrough in the equipment of the visual system, sinus surgery has not been significantly improved for a long time. Except for conservative surgery for a few patients with mild disease, a radical approach is often used for patients with more severe disease, i.e., removal of most of the middle turbinates and scraping of the entire sinus mucosa, which is considered a class of destructive surgery in contemporary terms. With various angles of the nasal endoscope it is possible to completely remove the lesions from the hidden areas of the sinuses, taking the first step towards surgical cure of sinusitis and nasal polyps.  The basic starting point of functional nasal endoscopic surgery is to cure sinusitis and nasal polyps by reestablishing the ventilation and drainage of the nasal cavity and sinuses as the basic condition for improving and restoring the morphology and physiological function of the mucous membrane of the nasal cavity and sinuses on the basis of complete removal of lesions. This kind of surgery is less painful for patients and has the advantages of thorough lesion removal, less bleeding, shorter operation time, less side injuries, shorter hospital stay and lower recurrence rate. In addition to sinusitis and nasal polyp surgery, this technology can also be used to perform endoscopic pituitary adenoma resection, endoscopic cerebrospinal fluid rhinorrhea repair, optic nerve canal decompression and other skull base and nasal-eye related surgeries, avoiding craniotomy and achieving the effect of minimally invasive surgery.