Therapeutic measures in allergic rhinopathy cases resistent to conventional treatment

If medical treatment fails to cure an allergic or vasomotor rhinopathy, we have to look for surgical procedures in trying to relieve the symptoms. Vidian neurectomy is a well known technique, but there still is much discussion about the technique and the long term results. With cryosurgery of the inferior nasal turbinates we obtain a fibrosis and shrinking of these hypertrophied tissues. The nitrous oxide cryosurgery unit we use relies on the Joule-Thomson effect. The specially designed cryoprobe for intranasal procedures is against the medial wall of the turbinate for 2 minutes with freezing to between -50 degrees and -60 degrees C. Thirty-seven patients entered our study. In vasomotor rhinopathy 17 out of 24 patients were completely free of symptoms for at least 3 months, while 4 were better. In allergic rhinopathy, the results are good but we did not reach this high number of completely cured patients. Most of the patients showed a relapse after 3 to 6 months. This is probably due to a regrowth of the autonomic nerve endings. We did not note side efects in the patients included in our study.