This disease causes significant discomfort
and a significant alteration in the quality of life. It can be treated
effectively with a medical treatment or through a surgery especially when it’s
about severe forms, combined to asthma or if it’s causing major nasal blockage.
Diagnosis
Diagnosing nasal polyps is done by an ENT
specialist who examines the nasal cavities using a fiberscope or an endoscope.
It’s the correct diagnosis of translucent bilateral polyps to confirm the
diagnosis. The
specialist has to make sure if it’s because of a tumor or an infection.
In fact,
the presence of polyps in the nasal cavities does not necessarily mean we are
experiencing nasal polyps since polyps can manifest during other diseases
including “general diseases”. Nasal polyps are not caused by allergies, and
thus a diagnosis regarding allergies is necessary only as a
means to diagnose aggravating
factors.
Nevertheless, intolerance to aspirin and anti-inflammatory
drugs should also be taken into account. This intolerance is reflected by the occurrence
of an asthma attack or lip or face edema, also known as Angioneurotic edema.
Complementary exams are based on three types of
exams: biological, scan and functional.
Treatment
The
treatment is mainly based on taking corticosteroids on a daily basis given by
nasal spray. Nowadays, they represent the basic treatment and absolutely
have to be taken daily and regularly. In case this treatment is not
sufficiently efficient, corticosteroids tablets can be used, but these should not be taken
foolishly as they may have secondary effects and even consequences.
In
practice when, in addition to corticosteroids –based daily treatments, the use
of corticosteroids tablets is far from providing the necessary satisfactory
degree of comfort and quality of life, it’s advisable to go for “ethmoidectomy”
that aims to open up nasal cavities and the sinus and thus ensure greater
efficiency in the local treatment.
In case of associated asthma, it is imperative to treat it on a
regular and efficient basis since asthma and polyps interact, and to control
one, one needs to treat the other efficiently.
Consequences
Polyps
and other symptoms can be without doubt controlled by systemic corticosteroids therapy. The problem is to avoid the drawbacks of this
treatment.
Indeed,
taking corticosteroids tablets frequently might cause bone weakness –
osteoporosis – muscle loss, fragile hair and skin, and disordered
adrenal glands
Three
capital notions!
- A corticosteroids-based treatment has to be short for 10 days, two weeks are considered to be the maximum duration not to exceed;
- Only oral medication should be taken because injectable corticosteroids often have a long duration of action;
- It’s the cumulative dose of systemic corticosteroids that is correlated
with risk of osteoporosis. With this in mind, three treatments a year
are consodered to be the maximum.
As far as ethmoidectomy is concerned, it’s an intervention done under general anaesthetic at the cost of brief hospitalization.
It requires regular rinses of the nasal cavities during the post-operative period as well as surgical care done during the coming check-ups.
