Comparison of the long term efficacy of radiofrequency ablation and surgical turbinoplasty in inferior turbinate hypertrophy: a randomized clinical study

Abstract

Objective: To compare the long term effectiveness of radiofrequency thermal ablation with that of surgical turbinoplasty, a prospective, randomized, blinded clinical study was conducted.

Methods: Eighty six patients suffering from nasal obstruction due to bilateral inferior turbinate hypertrophy were enrolled. Forty four patients were operated by radiofrequency ablation, while 42 underwent surgical turbinoplasty. The outcomes of both techniques were compared in terms of symptoms using visual analogue score (VAS) and endoscopic scores.

Results: A statistically significant difference in the VAS scores existed between the two groups by the 3rd month in terms of nasal obstruction (p=.0002) and headache (p=.0001), by the 6th month in terms of nasal secretions (p=.007), by the end of 1 year in terms of sneezing (p=.023) and no statistically significant difference even till the end of year with respect to hyposmia.

Conclusions: Radiofrequency thermal ablation is more effective than surgical turbinoplasty in terms of treating nasal obstruction and equally effective in terms of managing sneezing. Radiofrequency ablation has the advantage of being a day care procedure and minimal complications.

Chinese abstract

目的: 为了对射频热消融的长期有效性和外科鼻间隔成形术的长期有效性进行比较, 我们进行了前瞻性的、随机的、盲法的临床研究。

方法: 选择86例因双侧下鼻甲肥大而出现鼻塞的患者。四十四例患者接受了射频消融手术, 而42例患者接受了外科鼻间隔成形术。使用视觉模拟评分 (VAS) 和内窥镜评分对两种技术的结果在症状方面进行比较。

结果: 在第3个月, 在鼻塞 (p = .0002) 和头痛 (p = 0.0001) 方面；在第六个月, 在鼻分泌物 (p = .007) 方面；1年结束时, 在打喷嚏 (p = .023) 方面, 两组之间存在着VAS评分的统计学显著差异。即使到年底, 在嗅觉减退方面, 都没有统计学意义上的差异。

结论: 射频热消融在治疗鼻阻塞方面比外科鼻间隔成形术更有效, 在治疗打喷嚏方面同样有效。射频消融具有当日手术和最小并发症的优点。

Keywords:

• Turbinate hypertrophy
• surgical turbinoplasty
• radiofrequency
• visual analogue score

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.