Key issues of acute rhinosinusitis

Introduction. There is a clear need to discuss separate issues related to acute rhinosinusitis. The rationale is that prevalence rates of the disease remain high. At the same time, the incidence rates are growing globally, including Russia, Europe, the USA and Asia. Apart from that, acute rhinosinusitis significantly deteriorates the patients’ quality of life, causing physical, emotional and professional malaise. Moreover, the complications of acute rhinosinusitis may have serious consequences, and the economic costs to society are significant, including both explicit and implicit costs. Aim. To raise the level of awareness of otolaryngologists about current issues of acute rhinosinusitis based on the analysis and synthesis of literary sources. Mat erials and methods. An analysis of the published literature on the cause-and-effect relationship between the development and features of acute rhinosinusitis in the specialized academic research databases RSCI, eLibrary.Ru , Scopus, Web of Science, Medline over the last ten-year period was carried out. Results and discussion. We presented a brief overview of the etiology, epidemiology, risk factors, and diagnostic methods of acute rhinosinusitis based on the results of scientific literature review. The issues of treatment and prevention strategies, problems of antibiotic resistance are considered. The article brings to the fore the issues related to risk factors, among which it highlights an increasing incidence of acute respiratory viral infections, environmental and lifestyle influences. Modern diagnostic methods are addressed. We also emphasized the issues of improvement of clinical guidelines with a focus on recent research, stressed the importance of an individual approach to each patient, taking into account the severity and features of the course of the disease in individual patients. Conclusions. The paper considers a conceptual solution for providing medical care to patients with acute rhinosinusitis, which is based on the principles of evidence-based medicine and is regulated by legitimate clinical guidelines, both issued before and currently in force, including international ones.