A comparative study of the ciliary area of the maxillary sinus mucosa and computed tomographic images

Abstract

The ciliary area of the maxillary sinus mucosa and coronal sinus computed tomographic (CT) scans were studied in 36 maxillary sinuses of 28 patients with chronic sinusitis. Tissue specimens allowed ciliary surfaces to be observed under scanning electron microscopy, allowing surfaces to be expressed in terms of ciliary area (CA) as the percentage of mucosal surface occupied by cilia. The opacity produced by mucosal swelling and secretion in the maxillary sinus on CT was assessed by two methods: Min's and modified van der Veken's methods. Both techniques indicated an inverse correlation between opacity of the maxillary sinus and CA. Our findings suggest that the opacity of maxillary sinus on CT could be a significant parameter for predicting the surface conditions of ciliated maxillary mucosa prior to sinus surgery.

A comparative study between ciliary count and the degree of opacity of paranasal sinus CT scans in chronic sinusitis pre and post FESS

“…In brief, pre-operative CT can give us an idea about the pre-operative count of cilia in the sinuses but cannot predict the post-operative regeneration power. These results fit well with the work of Guo et al, 7 but with three main differences:…”

“…5,6,10 In our present study we tried to predict the number of cilia on the surface of sinus mucosa using a simple diagnostic indicator, namely the CT scan. This work was previously tried by Guo et al 7 but they evaluated the CT in a different way from our method. While we used the radiological classification proposed by Kennedy 3 they utilized two methods: one reported by Min et al 12 and the other reported by Vander Veken et al 13 In the first method, an imaginary line from the uppermost lateral wall to the lowest point of the maxillary sinus was drawn on the CT.…”

“…FESS is associated with ciliary regeneration and an increase in the number of cilia in the sinuses. [5][6][7] The population of cilia in the paranasal sinus mucosa before any sinus surgery is an important factor in the creation of effective drainage of the paranasal sinuses post-operatively, so it is always important to try to investigate and predict the count of cilia in paranasal sinuses before any sinus operation. Counting cilia on the surface of sinus mucosa involves invasive, costly, timeconsuming and complicated methods.…”

Effect of Maxillary Sinus Floor Augmentation on Sinus Membrane Thickness in Computed Tomography

“…Mucociliary clearance is the main factor in preserving sinus physiology and requires both normal ciliary structure and regular ciliary function 30 . While the number of cilia may be normal, defective ciliary function may still lead to impaired mucociliary transport 17 . The ciliary beat frequency (CBF) has been regarded as an indicator for effective ciliary movement, but even physiologic CBF values (10‐20 Hz) do not guarantee proper function 32 .…”

“…Thickening of the sinus membrane also has been observed in 61% of implants protruding into the maxillary sinus cavity (>4 mm in computed tomographic [CT] sections) without clinical signs of sinus infection 6 to 10 months after insertion 15 . While increased membrane thickness is not regarded as radiologic evidence of chronic sinusitis, 16 it may indicate morphologic alterations of the maxillary sinus membrane that have been considered to impair its physiologic mucociliary activity 17,18 . The aim of the present study is to investigate the effect of maxillary sinus floor augmentation on sinus membrane thickness by within‐patient comparison of preaugmentation versus postaugmentation CT scans.…”