The pathogenesis of sinusitis is not well understood, but it is certain that there are two more obvious triggers: one is allergic reactions and the other is cold and wind. Allergies cause inflammatory reactions in the nasal and sinus mucosa in 25-30% of patients, and in 70% of patients it is related to colds and flu. Cold and flu can cause inflammation of the mucosa of the nasal cavity, so that the form and function of the mucosa is damaged.
Currently, most of the daily outpatient visits to the Department of Otolaryngology are for rhinological diseases. The incidence of chronic sinusitis is 8%-15%, and statistics also found that patients with chronic sinusitis are increasing at a rate of 0.3% per year, especially because of allergic reactions caused by sinusitis patients are increasing year by year.
Chronic sinusitis medication is the key When allergies and colds induce acute sinusitis, symptoms such as foul-smelling nasal discharge, headache, and difficulty concentrating. If the disease does not continue for 12 weeks with topical glucocorticoids and antibiotics at this time, the disease may turn chronic, and then sinusitis is very difficult to eradicate. Some patients delay for decades because they were not treated regularly.
Chronic sinusitis cannot be completely cured, and patients can have an attack at any time. Therefore, almost all patients need to be treated with medication for up to three months. Unfortunately, a significant number of patients in clinical practice do not adhere to the medication, stopping it when their symptoms are relieved and going to the doctor when their condition becomes severe, with the result that they always go back and forth.
It is also found that nearly 30% of patients have bacterial biofilms that cannot be breached by drugs, and these patients are basically ineffective in drug therapy. Therefore, standardized long-term medication is a treatment principle that must be adhered to by patients with chronic sinusitis.
The first surgery must be cautious Sinusitis, although not fatal, seriously affects the quality of life of patients. Therefore, many people want to have surgery as soon as possible, expecting to be “cut off” from sinusitis.
The doctor suggests that surgery should only be considered if the medication is not effective or if there are nasal polyps and other conditions. Some patients ask the doctor to operate in a hurry and end up cutting off the sinus mucosa, turbinates, etc. Once these structures with important physiological functions are removed, they will not regenerate and the patient will relapse soon after the operation. The difficulty of re-operation is quite high at this point, and chronic sinusitis patients must be cautious about their first surgery.
In fact, surgical treatment does not cure sinusitis at all. At present, the recurrence rate of endoscopic treatment of chronic sinusitis is controlled within 10%, and if the surgical technique is not well mastered and the indications for surgery are not strictly grasped, the recurrence rate is even higher.
In addition, some patients still feel problems such as backflow of nasal discharge and phlegm in the throat after surgery. This is because the surgery only opens the sinus passages and allows the sinus secretions to flow out smoothly. After the surgery, the mucous membrane of the sinus is still swollen and inflamed for a short period of time, and the patient may have the symptoms of runny nose or nasal reflux.