Chronic sinusitis and prevalence of bullous shell

Sinusitis crónica y prevalencia de la concha bullosa

Introduction: the pneumatization of the ethmoid is an event of high complexity and variability, which is reflected in the existence of ethmoidal structures such as bullous concha (CB), paradoxical middle turbinate, Haller cells and prominent ethmoidal bulla among others. There are foreign statistics regarding the incidence and prevalence of these variants of pneumatization, but in our environment we lack data on this. The present work has as a general objective to establish the prevalence of CB in computed tomography (CT) of the face and in an annexed way to observe if there is a relation between the existence of CB and chronic sinusitis.
Materials and methods: TACs of 118 patients over 18 years of age between November 2002 and October 2003 were evaluated in a mixed descriptive study. The presence of bullous concha, setpodesvia, Haller cells and prominent ethmoidal bulla was discussed as well as the existence or absence of concomitant chronic sinusitis.
Results: a prevalence of CB was established in the sample of 27%, unilateral 18%, bilateral 9%, right 11% and left 7%. In addition to the above, the study showed that there is no statistically significant relationship between CB and chronic sinusitis in this sample, but the presence of chronic infection draws attention when taking into account the septo deviation associated with the existence of contralateral CB.
Conclusion: the prevalence of CB in the present study is similar to data established in foreign populations, with a prevalence of 27%. The present study did not find a positive relationship between the existence of CB and chronic sinusitis.

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