Cigarette smokers without chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) exhibit impaired NK cytotoxic activity in peripheral blood and unbalanced systemic production of pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines. These changes may serve as predisposing factors for respiratory and systemic infections in the postoperative period and should alert an anesthetist during perioperative management.

The results of our prospective, randomized study showed that the use of silicone tubes after primary EN-DCR is not necessary.

In the early stages of OSA, the pharyngeal fat pad seems to play an important role in the development of disease in overweight patients. Furthermore, weight reduction by lifestyle intervention-based programme reduces both central obesity and pharyngeal fat pads, resulting in an improvement of OSA.

In our retrospective study no significant statistical differences were seen between the patients with stenting compared with patients without stenting. However, prospective, randomized studies are clearly needed to answer the question of whether the use of stents is advisable.

The results of our study indicate that the application of intraoperative mitomycin C may improve the outcome in revision EN-DCR.