Predictive factors of subjective outcomes after septoplasty with and without turbinoplasty: can individual perceptual differences of the air passage be a main factor?

Abstract

Individual perceptual differences of air passage changes and emotional factors do not predict subjective symptom improvement after septoplasty. Baseline symptoms were the only predictive factor for patient satisfaction after septoplasty.

The Impact of Olfactory Dysfunction on the Psychological Status and Quality of Life of Patients with Nasal Obstruction and Septal Deviation

“…Patients with olfactory deficits had more anxiety symptoms than patients with normal smell and healthy controls. Stress levels were reduced for the whole patient group after nasal septoplasty, in accordance with the results reported by Hong et al 24 However, 6 months after surgery, only patients with normal olfactory function had stress levels that presented no significant differences from healthy controls. Furthermore, clinically significant improvement of nasal obstruction symptom severity (NOSE scores) and nasal-symptom related QoL (SNOT-22 scores), but not the presence of normal olfaction, were highly associated with an increased likelihood of clinically significant improvement of anxiety symptoms (SAST scores).…”

“…However, olfactory status was not found to have a significant impact on the likelihood of personal benefit from septoplasty. Similarly, none of the patients' demographics affected the subjective evaluation of surgical outcome, in agreement with previous studies which examined age, gender, smoking 19,21,24,25,48 and socio-economic status. 19 Clinically significant improvement of nasal obstruction and nasalsymptom related QoL were the only predictive factors significantly associated with subjective surgical outcome.…”

“…This finding is in accordance with other reports, which demonstrated that patients with more severe nasal symptoms preoperatively had more potential of improvement of their health status after septoplasty and were more satisfied with surgical outcome. 19,21,23,24,49 Thus, it seems that personal benefit from septoplasty is mainly affected by nasal symptom resolution rather than improvement of olfactory function.…”

“…1,[11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18] However, the impact of olfactory impairment due to septal deviation on the nasal-symptom related and general QoL of the patients has not been adequately addressed in the literature. In addition, although there are studies investigating predictive factors for QoL outcomes after septoplasty, [19][20][21][22][23][24][25] there is no data available to the relevance of the olfactory function specifically to patients' psychological status (anxiety and depression symptoms) and its effect on their satisfaction with the surgical procedure and postoperative QoL recovery. The use of standardized olfactory tests, validated olfaction-specific questionnaires, and mental health psychometric instruments allows a clearer delineation of the psychological profile and evaluation of olfaction of the patients as a codeterminant for QoL and emotional status after septoplasty.…”

Editorial

“…In a prospective study of 49 patients with 3-month follow-up, Hong et al 6 present their work on predictive factors of subjective outcome in this commonly performed procedure. They report that postoperative satisfaction with septoplasty was not related to depression, age, gender, allergy status, smoking status, or objective degree of septal deviation using acoustic rhinometry or nasal endoscopy.…”