The value of computerised rhinomanometry and a simple manometry with saline in predicting the outcome of patients with acute trephined frontal sinusitis.

Infection of the anterior ethmoids and recessus frontalis causes swelling of the mucosa and obstruction of the nasofrontal duct, impairing the drainage of the frontal sinus. During the healing process the obstruction diminishes gradually. Prolongation of this process can lead to chronic infection of the nasofrontal region causing recurrent or chronic frontal sinusitis. In our everyday work we need a simple and reliable method to evaluate the patency of the nasofrontal duct, in order to be able to assess the recovery and to find those patients whose disease tends to become chronic. For this purpose we have measured the patency of the nasofrontal duct in 58 patients with frontal sinusitis after trephination with computerized rhinomanometry (RM) and with a simple salinemanometry (SM). The validity of the two methods to predict the further outcome of the patients has been compared in order to find out if SM would prove to be at least almost as reliable as rhinomanometry. Our statistics prove that SM is a useful aid in assessing the short-term recovery process of the patients. The long-term predictive value still remains to be seen.