Our results indicate that sidestream smoking increases the risk of OME and ROM. Legal regulations and guidelines must be established to protect children from passive smoking. Because cotinine urinalysis is a noninvasive and reliable method for the determination of passive smoking, it can be used for that purpose.

Functional endoscopic sinus surgery (FESS) is the surgical treatment of choice for many physicians in chronic inflammatory diseases of the sinuses. Although subjective benefit has been claimed after surgery, there are not enough studies reporting objective improvement. We evaluated 40 patients undergoing FESS for chronic and recurrent sinusitis with visual analog scale (VAS) scoring of sensation of nasal obstruction and active anterior rhinomanometry of nasal resistance. The results of postoperative measurements demonstrated that baseline total nasal resistance measured with rhinomanometry and evaluated with VAS scoring (baseline and after decongestion) were significantly lower than preoperative measurements. However, improvement in nasal resistance was not statistically significant after decongestion, whereas VAS scoring was. These findings indicate that FESS improves nasal mucosal edema but does not change the structural anatomy of the nose.

The purpose of this study was to compare the preoperative and postoperative ultrastructural changes of paranasal sinus mucosa in patients treated with functional endoscopic sinus surgery for chronic rhinosinusitis. Twelve patients undergoing functional endoscopic sinus surgery for the treatment of chronic rhinosinusitis were involved. The ethmoid sinus mucosa was sampled during the operation and approximately 6 months after the operation. The ciliated epithelium of sinus mucosa was evaluated with transmission electron microscopy. The samples were taken at the Otolaryngology Department of Istanbul University School of Medicine. Electron microscopic study was performed at the Histology and Embryology Department of the same University. Preoperatively, ciliated epithelial cells of the sinus mucosa of the patients showed degenerated ultrastructure with decreased number of cilia, cytoplasmic protrusions, cisternal dilatations of endoplasmic reticulum, and mitochondrial swellings. Remnants of degenerated cells and cellular separations at cell junctions were evident in the diseased epithelium. Goblet cells were frequent along the epithelial lining. Postoperatively, normal architecture and ultrastructure of the ciliated epithelium was restored. These observations showed that unlike other surgical operations, paranasal sinus mucosa can regenerate and the ciliated epithelium can return to normal after functional endoscopic sinus surgergy.

Passive smoking increases the risk of OME and ROM in children between 3 and 7 years old. The avoidance of daily exposure to domestic tobacco smoke could have a public health impact.