[Paranasal sinus tumors with orbital involvement]

Paranasal sinus tumors frequently extend into the bony orbital contents. In the past, their treatment often resulted in severe visual defects or consisted in enucleation. In an effort to determine whether an effective but more conservative form of therapy, is possible, 40 patients with such lesions were treated over the past 11 years by microsurgical resection followed by radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy. The present paper describes the authors' surgical technique, i.e. the transfrontal extradural approach and the midface-degloving-technique. In addition, the following parameters are evaluated specifically: 1) the effects of conservative resection on overall survival rate, 2) frequency of local disease recurrence and 3) changes in orbital function as a result of the combined therapy.