“Role of Rigid Nasal Endoscopy in the Diagnosis and Management of Epistaxis”

Objectives: To evaluate the various local causes for and management of epistaxis by using rigid nasal endoscope. Methods: Totally 50 patients with epistaxis were analyzed over a period of 1 year in Sri Venkateshwara ENT Institute and Bowring and Lady Curzon hospital using rigid nasal endoscope either under Local or General anesthesia. Those patients in whom, the cause for epistaxis was difficult to be made out on anterior and posterior rhinoscopy, were chosen for rigid nasal endoscopy to localize the bleeding point. Results: The use of the nasal endoscope helped us to spot out the particular site of bleeding in nasal cavity and treat them appropriately. It was observed that epistaxis was more in male patients especially in the 3rd and after the 5th decade.Out of 50 patients, Points of epistaxis commonly were at crevices of lateral nasal wall(14 ), septal spur (10), septal spur with ulcer (4) nasal mass like angiofibroma, rhinosporidiosis, inverted papilloma, malignancy of nose and para nasal sinuses (4) ,congested significant adenoid(3), scabs or crusts in crevices in lateral wall(3), septal spur with congested polyp in middle meatus (2), 2 patients were having nasal polyp. Conclusion: Nasal endoscopy is indeed a very useful procedure which aides not only in the localization of the bleeding point, but also in detecting the pathology and in the treatment of those bleeding sites.