Surgical drainage of the maxillary sinus through the inferior meatus

In the last decade an increasing number of authors advocates to avoid the Caldwell-Luc procedure whenever possible in rhinogenous and/or odotogenous maxillary sinusitis. Advantages and drawbacks of the intranasal inferior meatus fenestration and its modifications are discussed as well as some technical details. In some cases the intranasal operation could be enlarged as described by several authors many years ago. In a limited number of cases the intranasal procedures may fail to cure or improve the patients condition. Here we can still resort to a more radical type of operation via the fossa canina.