Thirty years of endoscopic sinus surgery: What have we learned?

Prior to adaptation of endoscopic approaches for sinonasal pathology, patients regularly endured significant morbidity from open approaches to the sinonasal cavity that were often fraught with failure. With improvements in transnasal endoscopy, functional endoscopic sinus surgery subsequently emerged from the work of Messerklinger and other pioneers in the field. The popularity of endoscopic sinus surgery quickly escalated and expanded to pathology other than inflammation. Here, we discuss the evolution of endoscopic sinus surgery as it relates to improvements in understanding disease pathogenesis, improvements in instrumentation and expansion of indications.