Clinical Outcomes of Endonasal Sphenopalatine Artery Cauterization in Endoscopic Sinus Surgery

Endoscopic sinus surgery (ESS) is one of the common ENT surgeries performed. Various techniques are available for reducing the blood loss during ESS. The efficacy of cauterization of the SPA in reducing the per-operative blood loss has not been explored in the literature. This study evaluates the efficacy of SPA cauterization prior to sinus surgery and its per-operative and post-operative outcomes. To study the outcomes of endonasal SPA cauterization in patients undergoing ESS. This is a prospective observational study conducted in a tertiary care centre from October 2018 to October 2020. 30 patients underwent ESS where SPA was cauterized by bipolar diathermy in one side of the nasal cavity and in the contralateral side, SPA was not cauterized. The results were tabulated and compared between the cauterized and non cauterized side. p value < 0.05 was considered as statistically significant. Mean blood loss (p value = 0.20), operating time (p value = 0.19), surgical field grade, post operative Lund Kennedy Score at 1st, 4th and 12th week were compared and the difference between cauterized and non cauterized was found to be statistically insignificant. In this study, endonasal SPA cauterization did not significantly reduce the intra operative bleeding and surgical field grade in patients undergoing ESS. SPA cauterization did not adversely affect the per operative and post operative outcome and hence authors highlight the fact that it can be safely performed in cases where severe intra operative bleeding is expected and its effectiveness can be studied better in such cases.