Medication and antibiotics do not result very well. Surgery can even be the most suitable, says new study.
Surgery can be more effective than antibiotics in the treatment of Rinosinusite chroniclea condition that causes persistent nasal obstruction, discharge and reduction of the sense of smell that affects about 9% of the world’s population And it occurs when mucus producing cavities – nasal breasts – ignite.
Typical symptoms include clogged nose or draining, facial pain and loss of smell, which extend for more than 12 weeks. The cause is often unknown and may be associated with viral infections or changes in the nasal microbiome.
Initial treatment consists of anti-inflammatory nasal sprays and daily washings with saline solution. When symptoms persist, doctors often resort to a three-month cycle of clarithromycin, an antibiotic used more for its anti-inflammatory properties than for antibacterial effect.
As a last resort, it is possible to resort to surgery to widen nasal sinuses and remove benign nasal polyps, which appear and aggravate symptoms in about 5% of cases. But so far, there were no studies that directly compared surgery with antibiotics, the.
To collect this gap, according to a study recently published in The Lancet, more than 500 adults with chronicle Rinosinusitis were recruited. Participants classified the severity of 22 symptoms, including facial pain and nasal discharge, on an average scale of 55 in 110. They were then distributed at random to take clarithromycin for three months, placebo pills or undergo nasal surgery. All continued to use sprays and do nasal washes.
Six months later, participants who took clarithromycin or placebo registered a reduction of about 10 points in the severity of symptomsa moderate relief that is believed to be the result of sprays and nasal washes.
In contrast, the surgery group had an average improvement of about 30 points, suggesting that this method provides a higher benefit.
There is, however, an important caveat: about 80% of participants had nasal polyps, possibly due to covid-19 pandemic, since coronavirus infection can trigger inflammation that leads to the formation of these polyps. More studies are needed to confirm whether the results apply to people without polyps, which have another type of inflammation.
