Epistaxis - A Study of Etiologies and Management at a Tertiary Care Hospital of Urban Sindh

OBJECTIVE: To highlight different etiologies of epistaxis and their management at the setup of a tertiary care level hospital of urban Sindh. STUDY DESIGN: Descriptive Study. SETTING: Department of E.N.T. and Head & Neck Surgery, Liaquat University Hospital Hyderabad from June 2011 to May 2013. METHODOLOGY: A prospective study of 437 patients presented with epistaxis due to different etiologies and its management at the department of E.N.T. and Head & Neck Surgery, Liaquat University Hospital Hyderabad. The patients of all age groups of both the genders were enrolled. All the data was collected on a pre-designed Performa equipped with all the relevant details. Finally all the collected data was then fed into SPSS VER. 16 to have statistical assistance and to construct different graphs and tables. RESULTS: Spanning over two years period, this study comprised 437 cases. 263(60.2%) were male and 174(39.8%) were female. The age range was 3-77 years with mean age to be 31.66 years. The commonest cause in this study was trauma which affected 155(35.6%) patients. Most of the patients i.e. 324(74.1%) reached us through emergency department. Site of bleeding was anterior in most of the patients, accounting 229(52.4%) patients. Maximum numbers of patients i.e. 163 (37.3%) were managed successfully by anterior nasal packing. CONCLUSION: Epistaxis constitutes the main bulk of emergency cases attending the E.N.T. department. This study observed trauma to be the commonest cause of epistaxis in our set up. Maximum number of cases required anterior nasal packing as the only measure to be effective and successful from management point of view.