A comparison of an absorbable nasal implant versus functional rhinoplasty for nasal obstruction

An absorbable nasal implant for the treatment lateral nasal wall collapse was approved for use in patients with nasal obstruction. It remains to be seen whether this treatment is equivalent to open techniques for the treatment of nasal valve incompetence from collapsibility.

Two groups were analyzed for the study. One group had surgery which included the implant, septoplasty, and inferior turbinate submucous reduction and the other group had a variety of functional rhinoplasty techniques for lateral wall insufficiency in addition to septoplasty and inferior turbinate submucous reduction. NOSE and SNOT-22 were used to demonstrate pre and post-operative changes.

Ninety total patients were identified. Fifty patients underwent insertion of an absorbable nasal implant and 40 underwent a traditional open technique to stabilize the LNW. For the implant group the mean NOSE score was 63.4 (SD 24) and post-operative was 22.9 (SD 19.9), in addition, the SNOT-22 score was 38.8 (SD 19.8) and post-operative was 18.5 (SD 15.2). For the open rhinoplasty group, the mean NOSE score was 57.9 (SD 23.2) and post-operative was 17.6 (SD 16.4). The SNOT-22 score was 33.6 (SD 14.9) and post-operative score was 11.5 (SD 15.2) The delta between pre and post-operative NOSE and SNOT-22 test were not different at an average of 3.95 months post-operatively between the groups (NOSE, P = 0.94 and SNOT-22, p = 0.53).

In patients with multiple structural causes of nasal obstruction, including lateral wall insufficiency, insertion of an absorbable nasal implant, to support the LNW, seems to be equally effective as functional rhinoplasty techniques over a 4 month timeframe.