Comparison of Efficacy of Nasal Packing Vs No Packing in Patients Undergoing Functional Endoscopic Sinus Surgery (FESS)

Aim: To compare the efficacy of nasal packing versus no nasal packing in patients undergoing FESS. Methods: This comparative study was carried out at Department of Head and Neck Surgery, Civil Hospital Quetta and Chaudhary Rehmat Ali Memorial Trust Hospital, Lahore from 1st October 2014 to 30th August 2015. A total of 100 cases (50 in each group) were enrolled in the study with 18-50 years of either gender having chronic sinus diseases while we excluded cases with indication for septoplasty, turbinate surgery, or use of other nasal packing, which would have hampered a valid comparison of the packing and no packing and presence of a severe medical or neuropsychiatric disorder. Group-A was allotted to Nasal Packing (applied according to departmental protocols), and Group-B to the patients with no nasal packing. All patients after FESS were followed till 48 hours for post-operative bleeding. The patients with post-operative bleeding in both groups were recorded. Results: Mean age of the patients was calculated as 43.19 +/- 4.28 years of age, majority of the patients in both groups were between 31-50 years. Male were recorded in 27(54%) in Group-A and 26(52%) in Group-B while remaining cases were females i.e., 23(46%) in Group-A and 24(48%) in Group-B, comparison of efficacy (no post-operative bleeding) was recorded in 47(94%) in Group-A and 41(82%) in Group-B, p value was calculated as 0.06, which is no in-significant. Conclusion: We concluded that post operative bleeding was higher in packing group while this difference was not significant.