Pre- and postoperative evaluation of patients with nasal obstruction undergoing endoscopic sinus surgery.

Functional endoscopic endonasal sinus surgery (FESS) is at present the surgical method of choice for many clinicians treating chronic sinusitis and nasal polyposis. Postoperatively, patients have felt that patency of the nasal airway is improved, although all previous studies have failed to objectively measure changes produced. By using anterior active rhinomanometry, decreased unilateral and total nasal resistance was measured. Although improvement in total resistance was not statistically significant, reduction in unilateral resistance was. All patients demonstrated subjective improvements in unilateral and total nasal patencies. The reduction in nasal resistance was more pronounced in baseline resistance values than after decongestion, indicating that FESS had a positive effect on mucosal edema but did not alter the structural anatomy of the main nasal passages.