Microdebrider Assissted Partial Inferior Turbinectomy; Advantages Over the Conventional Method

Objective: To compare the safety and efficacy of microdebrider assisted partial inferior turbinectomy with the conventitional turbinectomy in patients with inferior turbinate hypertrophy. Design: Prospective randomized single blinded study. Setting: Academic Medical Center. Patients & Methods: Sixty patients with nasal obstruction and bilateral hypertrophied nasal turbinates that was refractory to medical treatment were included. History taking, clinical assessment and preoperative CT scan of the paranasal sinuses were done for all patients. Patients were randomly assigned to receive microdebrider partial turbinectomy (n=30) or conventitional surgical turbinectomy (n=30). Main Outcome Measures: Operative time, blood loss, subjective improvement of the patients symptoms and post operative complications. Results: The 2 groups were comparable in age and sex. The operative time and operative blood loss was less in the microdebrider group (p<0.001). Follow-up visit after 3 months revealed improvement in 93.3% of the patients in the microdebrider group vs 96.7% in the surgical group. There was no difference in the incidence of post operative complications between the 2 groups. Conclusions: Partial turbinectomy with the microdebrider is faster than surgical partial turbinectomy & with less blood loss. We advise to use the microdebrider as routine method for treating nasal turbinates hypertrophy.