BACKGROUND: With the advent of functional endoscopic sinus surgery, the importance of the ostiomeatal unit(OMU) has been known. Anatomic abnormalities, irreversible inflammatory changes, or obstruction of ostiomeatal unit lead to sinus ostial obstruction and subsequent chronic or recurrent sinusitis. For these reasons, septal deviation, concha bullosa and paradoxical middile turbinate may compress the uncinate process and occlude the infundibulum and then they may induce anterior paranasal sinusitis. OBJECTIVES: This study was conducted to evaluate the relationship between the existence of anatomical variations of sinonasal regions and Babbel's five patterns of chronic sinusitis based on coronal plane CT and to be helpful in treatment of chronic sinusitis. MATERIALS AND METHOD: From february 1994 to February 1996, Coronal plane CT scans of 150 patients with bilateral sinonasal disease were retrospectively reviewed. We examined anatomical variations-paradoxical middle turbinate, concha bullosa, and septal deviation-using PNS CT and analyzed the finding of PNS CT based on Babbel's five patterns of chronic sinusitis. One patient with bilateral sinonasal disease was considered as two different cases. RESULTS: In consequence of this study, the existence of anatomical variations don't show any influence on the paranasal sinusitis patterns. CONCLUSION: This study suggests that the existence of anatomical variations may not be significantly associated with respective incidence of the paranasal sinusitis patterns and may similarly influence in each patterns of chronic sinusitis.
Humans ; Incidence ; Retrospective Studies ; Sinusitis* ; Tomography, X-Ray Computed ; Turbinates