Functional frontal sinus opening should be emphasized in endoscopic sinus surgery

  The development of minimally invasive nasal endoscopic surgery for nasal sinus diseases is a revolutionary achievement in the field of rhinology. Minimally invasive nasal endoscopic surgery has been carried out in China since the mid to late 1990s, and now the procedure has basically been popularized in hospitals at the county and above level, and even in town hospitals in some developed areas. Nevertheless, there are still a considerable number of patients whose postoperative outcomes are not very satisfactory. The reasons for this include the backwardness of the equipment, the difference of the technical level, the intraoperative skills and minimally invasive concept of the operator, the degree of sinus opening, the compliance of the postoperative comprehensive medication, the postoperative endoscopic cavity cleaning and care, the difference of the individual’s physique, etc., all of which will affect the overall postoperative outcome regression.  For many years, the opening of the frontal sinus has been a problem for many specialists, and most doctors have little problem with the opening of the septal sinus, maxillary sinus and pterygoid sinus. This is due to the special angle of the frontal sinus, which needs to be turned to 70-90 angle in order to achieve the effect of direct vision, which is difficult for those surgeons who are used to 0 degree mirror operation, and the operation is often not smooth, and the eye and hand cannot be well coordinated, so they are less willing to operate under 70 degree mirror. Therefore, the degree of complete opening of the frontal sinus during surgery becomes an unknown quantity, which largely determines the success of the surgery and whether the surgery is recurrent or not, etc.  Traditionally, the frontal sinus is considered to be of no special importance in sinus surgery, and it is often sufficient to try it with an elbow suction device during the operation, and if it can be passed, then it will be sufficient, and the inflammation here will naturally subside and the drainage will be restored after the other sinuses are opened. In fact, it is not, we found in the clinic, many postoperative recurrence, symptoms do not improve the patient, the reason, ultimately or intraoperative frontal sinus treatment did not pay attention to, in fact, in the frontal sinus drainage channel, there are many factors that affect the smooth flow of drainage, such as the number of air room, polyps in the air room, the degree of inflammation. In patients with inflammation in the frontal sinus, there is often pus accumulation in the frontal sinus drainage channel, polyps in the mucosa (), bone proliferation, etc. Most of these factors are irreversible and need to be resolved promptly and thoroughly during surgery in order to accelerate the postoperative recovery process.  At present, it is not very common to find specialists who are skilled in operating with 70-degree scopes. For those patients with frontal sinus problems, if the frontal sinus drainage problem is not adequately addressed, the postoperative efficacy will be directly compromised.  We have designed special surgical instruments through preliminary anatomical training, endoscopic simulation operation training, and carried out complete opening of the frontal sinus frontal saphenous air space in patients with combined frontal sinus drainage obstruction by using 70-degree angle endoscope during surgery, while preserving the anterior wall of the frontal saphenous fossa (anterior wall of the nasal mound air space) as a natural barrier, which avoids the previous incision of the mucosa of the nasal mound and removal of all the nasal mound air space and tends to bring This avoids the defects of postoperative adhesions and is more functional. From the feedback of the patient data done so far, the results are quite optimistic, and patients can feel the improvement of comfort brought by the surgery on the day after the surgery, the feeling of frontal distension and pain disappears obviously, the quality of sleep is greatly improved, and the efficiency of study is also significantly improved. The following is a photo of a patient during surgery and at the follow-up visit in January after surgery. It is easy to see that the mucosal exudation in the sinus was significantly reduced at about 1 month after surgery, and the time of epithelialization of the surgical cavity was greatly shortened later.