| dc.description.abstract | Background: Chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) is a common disease with a significant impact on
quality of life. Most patients can be treated with medical therapy. Some patients do not
response to medical therapy, and undergo endoscopic sinus surgery.
Purpose: The purpose of this study is to assess how health-related quality of life changed
after endoscopic sinus surgery in patients with CRS.
Material and methods: This is a review of prospectively collected data from a local quality
registry in St. Olavs Hospital in Trondheim. Quality of life we re assessed before, and 6
months after surgery. We used a disease specific quality of life questionnaire, the Sino Nasal
Outcome Test (SNOT-20), and a generic health related quality of life questionnaire, the Short
Form Health Survey (SF-36). Additionally all patients reported symptoms on a Visual Analog
Score (VAS) before, and 6 months after surgery. Forty-nine patients were included in the
study, 18 women (36, 7 %) and 31 men (63, 3 %).
Results: The SNOT-20 was significantly (P- value < 0, 05) improved six months
postoperatively in all twenty questions, and in all four domains in our study. Patients
significantly (P-value < 0, 05) improved their generic health related quality of life in six of
eight domains/aspects. Patients with CRS had significantly higher mean SNOT-20 score 6
months after surgery, compared with a reference group without CRS.
Conclusions: We found generic health related quality of life and disease specific quality of
life improved 6 month after endoscopic sinus surgery in patients with chronic rhinosinusitis.
Relevance
International studies have shown an effect of endoscopic sinus surgery for people with CRS
on disease-specific and generic health-related quality of life. In this study a comparison is also
made of the patients’ scores on the disease-specific questionnaire Sino Nasal Outcome Test
(SNOT-20) and a references group score. Based on our knowledge, it is not made such a
comparison in previous studies. | nb_NO |
