Comparison of balloon dacryocystoplasty to probing as the primary treatment of congenital nasolacrimal duct obstruction

Monocanalicular silastic intubation for the initial correction of congenital nasolacrimal duct obstruction

“…[9][10][11][12][13][14][15] The current study's success rate also compares favorably with balloon dacryocystoplasty which although it has found a high success rate for recurrent nasolacrimal duct obstruction, 5,16,17 appears to offer no significant advantage over simple probing as a primary treatment. 18,19 The timing of surgical intervention for nasolacrimal duct obstruction is controversial. Several studies have found a significant increase in the recurrence rate in those patients undergoing probing after the age of 12 months, 9,10,14 which has led to the recommendation of probing children before the age of 13 months.…”

Balloon catheter dilatation versus probing as primary treatment for congenital dacryostenosis

“…We have found only one study in the literature that compared the results of probing with the results of balloon dacryoplasty as primary treatment for congenital dacryostenosis. Gunton et al 5 retrospectively paired 29 eyes that had balloon catheter dilatation with 29 eyes of age-matched controls that had probing. They found that balloon dacryoplasty was successful in 90% of patients as opposed to an 86% success rate for probing (p=0.2).…”

The course of epiphora after failure of silicone intubation for congenital nasolacrimal duct obstruction

“…Probing and irrigation is successful in 92-97% of cases when performed up to 1 year of age and in 42-89% of older children [4,7,11,17,19,27]. In the rest, epiphora persists and complications such as infection may occur, necessitating a second probing, irrigation and inferior turbinate infraction [15], silicone intubation of the lacrimal drainage system [1], balloon catheterization [5,13], or dacryocystorhinostomy (DCR) [6,22,23], depending on the surgeon's own experience. Silicone tube insertion has a success rate of 82-100% [3,8,12,24].…”