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Abstract: Endoscopes have changed medical practice in several fields. Nasal endoscopy allows precise diagnosis and new therapeutic techniques, several of them as local anesthesia out patient procedures. Advances in nasal endoscopy and computed tomography have challenged traditional concepts of sinus disease. Sinusitis is primarily a disease of obstruction of meatus or ostia and sinusal inflammation is frequently secondary. Several factors may cause obstruction inclunding viral infections, allergic rhinitis, septal deviations, turbinares hypertrophy, and others intranasal abnormalities. Nasal endoscopy was dome in 162 patients and revelead septal deviations (27%), narrowed middles meatus (22%), inferior turbinate hypertrophy (15%), middle turbinate hyperthropy (12%), medially bent uncinate process (11%), paradoxically bent middle turbinate (11%), and concha bullosa (8%) among others. Aproximately 2/3 of these abnormalities were found only endoscopy and may predispose to obstruction and sinus disease. Endoscopes are also useful to acess and treat nasal polyposis, antrochoanal polyp, epistaxis, and nasal tumors.
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