OUTCOMES FOLLOWING NASAL SURGERY WITH AND WITHOUT POSTOPERATIVE NASAL DRESSINGS

PURPOSE OF STUDY: Nasal dressing following nasal surgery in an attempt to prevent postoperative bleeding and to modulate the wound healing process. Experience with postoperative nasal dressings in otolaryngologic literature spans more than half a century; despite of this, there is still little agreement between the surgeons on the appropriate choice of nasal dressings following nasal surgery, or whether nasal dressings are required at all. This paper briefly reviews the comparative study between the postoperative cases with and without nasal dressings. STUDY DESIGN: It is a prospective study carried out in a tertiary care, teaching hospital. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A prospective evaluation of patients who underwent nasal surgery at tertiary teaching hospital setting between February 2013 to June 2014 was performed. Nasal dressing was done in some cases who underwent nasal surgery and no dressing was done in some cases. The comparative results between the cases with and without nasal packing in terms of Postoperative bleeding, Adhesion formation, Middle turbinate lateralization were studied. RESULTS: Out of 160 patients included in this study, nasal dressing postoperatively was done in 92 cases and 68 cases were not packed postoperatively. In terms of postoperative bleeding there is no significant difference between the cases with packs (5.43%) and without pack (5.88%). Postoperative Adhesion formation was less in cases without nasal packing (2.94%) than in cases with nasal dressing (8.7%). Middle turbinate lateralization is also less in cases without nasal packing (8.82%) than in cases with nasal packing (17.5%). CONCLUSION: The decision as to whether to pack the nose after nasal surgery remains controversial. There has been an increasing tendency to move away from removable nasal dressings due to discomfort and bleeding upon removal and also postoperative adhesions. This study showcases that there is no considerable difference in postoperative bleeding in patients with or without nasal dressings postoperatively. It also shows that wound healing is better and middle turbinate lateralization is less significant in cases without nasal packings than in cases with postoperative nasal dressings.