Abstract Introduction Allergic rhinitis is a global health problem causing significant impairment of quality of life and incurring a large health care expenditure. Various medical and surgical treatment modalities are available for the treatment of allergic rhinitis. The inferior turbinate plays a central role in allergic rhinitis, as it is the primary site where allergens are first deposited and undergoes hypertrophy leading to nasal obstruction which does not respond for medical management for long standing cases which necessitates surgical management. The purpose of the study is to evaluate the role of inferior turbinoplasty in the management of nasal obstruction in long standing allergic rhinitis. This study includes 80 patients with persistent allergic rhinitis presenting with longstanding nasal obstruction. Methods In the period from November 2017 to May 2019, 80 patients who were diagnosed with allergic rhinitis as per ARIA guidelines were studied. These patients were divided into two groups of 40 patients each. Group I /study group consisted of patients with persistent nasal obstruction associated with bilateral inferior turbinate hypertrophy and were willing to undergo bilateral inferior turbinoplasty. Group II or the control group consisted of patients with persistent nasal obstruction associated with bilateral inferior turbinate hypertrophy who were treated conservatively with additional nasal steroid spray and antihistamines for a further duration of 4 weeks. There were 4 follow up visits which were done after a week, after a month, at three months and 6 months duration. Results The age of the patients included in this study ranged from 19 to 58 years in both the groups.Majority of the patients were between 30 and 60 years in both the groups. In both the groups, female patients were 43% of the study population and males were 57%.Both of the groups are age and gender matched. At the end of 6 months of the study period, significant improvement in NOSE score was seen in both the groups (p value < 0.0001). However the intergroup comparison of NOSE score shows that those patients who underwent bilateral inferior turbinoplasty (GROUP I) had significantly lower NOSE scores when compared to those who were treated conservatively with medications (GROUP II). Conclusion Patients who underwent bilateral inferior turbinoplasty had better outcome with respect to nasal obstruction as compared to patients who had undergone conservative medical line of management with medications.
Murali et al. (Tue,) studied this question.