Evaluation of Anatomical Variations of Paranasal Sinuses in Children with Coronal Plan Computed Tomography

Abstract

Aim:In this study, we aimed to evaluate the frequency of the most common anatomical variations of the paranasal sinuses and lateral nasal wall in coronal sinus CT scans of pediatric cases.Methods: Paranasal sinus CT scans of a total of 200 pediatric patients who underwent paranasal sinus coronal CT between December 2000 and June 2005 in the Department of Radiology, Faculty of Medicine, Harran University were evaluated retrospectively. Out of 200 patients, 71 patients with pansinusitis, trauma and nasal polyposis were excluded from the study and 129 patients were included in the study. Results: In our cases, the anatomical variation rates in the bone structure detected by CT in order of frequency were: septal deviation 72.9%, concha bullosa 60.5%, Agger nazi cell 45.8%, paradox middle turbinate 31.7%, pneumotized superior turbinate 26.4%, Haller cell 24.1%, maxillary sinus hypoplasia 23.3%, pneumotized uncinate prominence (UP) 21%, pterygoid recess pneumotization 20.2%, supraorbital ethmoid cell 17.1%, maxillary sinus septation 14%, uncinate process atelectasis 12.5%, Onodi cell 11.6%, paradoxical superior turbinate 10.9%, anterior clinoid pneumotization 9.3%, ethmomaxillary sinus 7.8% and pneumotized inferior turbinate 1.6%. Maxillary sinus hypoplasia existed in all cases with UP atelectasis. We detected decreased ipsilateral maxillary sinus volume in all but one of our ethmomaxillary sinus cases. At the same time, we observed the ipsilateral superior meatus to be wider than normal in these cases. Conclusions: There was no significant difference between the rates of anatomical variation in bone structure in pediatric cases that we evaluated compared to the rates of anatomical variation reported in the literature for both pediatric and adult groups.