Importance of Sinonasal Evaluation Before Transplantation: Systematic Review With Meta-Analysis and Proposal of a...

The immunocompromised status in transplant recipients promotes the development and exacerbation of rhinosinusitis. However, there are no formal guidelines on pretransplant sinonasal evaluations. Here, we aimed to identify the prevalence and mortality rates of rhinosinusitis in the transplant population and to provide an evidence-based pretransplant screening protocol.

For our meta-analysis and systematic review of available literature, we performed an online search on PubMed, Scopus, and Google Scholar. We included 27 articles for review, which included 22 articles for meta-analysis. We assessed the risk of bias on outcome by using the GRADE system. Primary outcome measures were pretransplant prevalence of rhinosinusitis and overall mortality rates.

The prevalence of pretransplant rhinosinusitis in hematopoietic stem cell transplant recipients (22.2%) was significantly higher than the prevalence in solid-organ transplant recipients (3.9%) (relative risk 4.9; 95% CI, 4.2-5.6; P < .01). We found no significant difference in overall mortality between transplant recipients with or without rhinosinusitis. However, hematopoietic stem cell transplant recipients with pretransplant rhinosinusitis showed significantly higher risk of overall mortality (relative risk 2.8; 95% CI, 2.1-3.9; P < .05) compared with solid-organ transplant recipients.

Our research assessed the need for a clinical pretransplant sinonasal assessment in all transplant recipients and advised for routine paranasal sinus computed tomography before hematopoietic stem cell transplant, due to the higher prevalence of rhinosinusitis and risk of mortality in this group. We also presented a proposed screening protocol on pretransplant sinonasal evaluation.