Evaluation of asthma improvement after endoscopic sinus surgeryfor nasal polyposis

1Assistant Professor, Pulmonary department, Ghaem hospital,2Assistant Professor, Otorhinolaryngology– head and neck surgery department, Imam Reza hospital, 3 Internist, Emergency ward, Ghaem hospital, 4Medical Student, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Iran ntroduction: Asthma is characterized by airway inflammation, airway hyper responsiveness, and reversible airflow limitation. The prevalence of this disease has increased over the past two decades to approximately 5 to 10% of the population. The presence of nasal polyposis in asthma patients is associated with an increase in asthma severity. We studied the efficacy of endoscopic sinus surgery of nasal polyposis in improvement of asthma. We performed a prospective, cross-sectional study from 2001 until 2006. Fifty patients with severe persistent asthma and nasal polyposis were included. The severity of asthma (with NHLBI and NAPP criteria) and FEV1 before and after endoscopic nasal polypectomy were recorded. We used paired simple T test for comparison of means using SPSS software. The mean age of our patients was 32.5 ± 14.3 years and male to female ratio was 2/3. From 50 patients with asthma and nasal polyposis, 38 cases showed significant improvement in asthma severity and FEV1. Mean values of FEV1 before and after endoscopic sinus polypectomy were 1.68 L and 2.52 L respectively. Opening of the upper airway with resulting improvement of breathing following endoscopy sinus polypectomy can decrease the severity of asthma. We recommend to seek for nasal polyposis in patients with severe asthma and to consider endoscopic sinus surgery in these cases.