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Volume 6 Supplement 2

Canadian Society of Allergy and Clinical Immunology Annual Scientific Meeting 2010

The utility of using fiberoptic endoscopy in the diagnosis of nasal polyps

Allergy, Asthma & Clinical Immunology volume 6, Article number: P13 (2010) Cite this article

Background

Nasal examination is important in assessing patients with rhinitis. Most allergists examine the nose using an otoscope (OT). Most do not perform fiberoptic rhinoscopy (FR). The purpose of this study is to determine the sensitivity for identifying nasal polyps (NP) with OT examination using FR findings as the gold standard.

Materials and methods

This study was performed in a referral allergist’s practice in Ontario. In a prospective study, all patients with rhinitis symptoms had OT examination and FR. Patients who had NP identified with FR were included in the study. The findings of the OT examination were compared to the FR findings. Other data collected included allergy skin test results, presence of asthma, aspirin allergy, previous nasal surgeries, intranasal corticosteroid (INS) use and leukotriene receptor antagonist (LTRA) use.

Results

Eighty six patients were identified to have NP with FR. Forty nine patients (57%) had NP identified by OT examination. Forty (47%) of patients with NP had positive skin tests for at least one aeroallergen. Fifty-nine (68%) had asthma, 13 (15%) had an ASA allergy and 10 (12%) had both conditions. Forty-eight (56%) were using an INS and 9 (10%) were on LTRA. Thirty-four (40%) had previous surgery.

Conclusions

The OT examination had a 57% sensitivity. Therefore, in this study, 43% of patients with nasal polyps would have had their nasal polyps missed if FR was not performed.

Author information

Affiliations

  1. University of Waterloo, Canada

    Ruth Ko

  2. University of Western Ontario, Canada

    M Cottrill & HK Kim

  3. McMaster University, Canada

    HK Kim

Authors
  1. Ruth Ko
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  2. M Cottrill
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  3. HK Kim
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ruth Ko.

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Open Access This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Cite this article

Ko, R., Cottrill, M. & Kim, H. The utility of using fiberoptic endoscopy in the diagnosis of nasal polyps. All Asth Clin Immun 6, P13 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1186/1710-1492-6-S2-P13

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Keywords

  • Asthma
  • Aspirin
  • Rhinitis
  • Skin Test
  • Nasal Polyp

Allergy, Asthma & Clinical Immunology

ISSN: 1710-1492

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