International forum of allergy & rhinology
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Int Forum Allergy Rhinol · Aug 2015
Clinical TrialCharacterization of facial pain associated with chronic rhinosinusitis using validated pain evaluation instruments.
Prior investigations into facial pain associated with chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) have yielded important results, but have yet to use pain-specific outcome measures. This study seeks to characterize facial pain associated with CRS using validated pain-specific instruments. ⋯ Subjects with CRS have a greater burden of facial pain relative to control subjects across several standardized pain measures. Further, facial pain in CRS significantly correlated to quality of life and CRS-specific disease severity measures. Study across larger cohorts using standardized pain measures is warranted to clarify the association of facial pain with CRS.
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Int Forum Allergy Rhinol · Aug 2015
ReviewPurely endoscopic endonasal surgery of the craniovertebral junction: A systematic review.
Endoscopic endonasal surgery (EES) is a relatively novel approach to the craniovertebral junction (CVJ). The purpose of this analysis is to determine the surgical outcomes of patients who undergo purely EES of the CVJ. ⋯ Our analysis found that EES of the CVJ results in a high rate of neurologic improvement with acceptable complication rates. Given its minimally invasive nature and high success rate, this approach appears to be a reasonable alternative to the traditional transoral approach in select cases. This study represents the largest pooled sample size of EES of the CVJ to date. Increasing use of the endoscopic endonasal approach will allow for further studies with greater statistical power.