Vol.102 No.12 contentsPRACTICA OTO-RHINO-LARYNGOLOGICA
Vol. 102 No. 12 December 2009
Efficacy of Postendoscopic Surgical Nasal Sinus Packing
with Calcium Alginate Fiber (Algoderm)
Atsuhito Takahashi, Kazuhiko Shoji, Takehiro Iki,
Masanobu Mizuta and Mami Matsubara
(Tenri Hospital)
Satoshi Ikegami
(Shizuoka Hospital)
Yo Kishimoto and Tsuyoshi Kojima
(Kyoto University)
Endoscopic sinus surgery (ESS) is a globally disseminated, well-documented procedure. To determine whether post-ESS wound healing would benefit from wet dressing using calcium alginate fiber (Algoderm?) nasal packing, we monitored 173 subjects-106 men and 67 women-with nasoparanasal disease treated using ESS between April 2005 and March 2008. We evaluated postoperative pain on a numerical rating scale (0-5), and the postoperative complications of nasal bleeding and infection of the 173, 116 patients (67％), scored pain as ?2 on the day after surgery, but dropped to ＜20％, on the day after surgery on postoperative day (POD) 7, 16％ patients felt strong pain when Algoderm? was removed.
Postoperative complications involved 9 subjects (5.2％) with postoperative bleeding and 78 (45.1％) with high fever (?37.5?C). Almost all fever lasted until POD2. When Algoderm? was removed, infection-free wound healing was confirmed in almost all patients. Algoderm? had no foul smell in any case.
Nasal packing with Algoderm? thus appears beneficial postoperatively in ESS-treated subjects.
Key words :nasal packing, calcium alginate fiber (Algoderm?), wet dressing, postoperative complication