Introduction
Nasal obstruction is a common complaint of patients undergoing nasal
surgery. At the present, several methods are available for assessing the
nasal airway. These methods can be divided in two main groups: methods
that objectively measure nasal airflow or nasal airway dimensions, and
methods based on patient-reported evaluation of nasal breathing.
In theory, objective measurements and patient-reported evaluations of
nasal breathing should correlate. If objective methods measure an
appropriate nasal airflow then the patient should experience a suitable
sensation of good nasal breathing. Therefore, the patient-reported
evaluation should reflect that sensation and should correlate with the
objective evaluation. However, previous studies have not found
statistical correlation between objective measurements of nasal airflow
and patient-reported evaluations of nasal breathing (1-10). Some studies
have found correlations between nasal resistance and symptoms of nasal
obstruction in patients symptomatic for nasal obstruction (11-16),
whereas other studies did not find any correlation even in symptomatic
patients (18-20). Hence, there is still a great amount of controversy in
the literature that deserves further investigation.
A growing body of evidence indicates that the sensation of nasal
breathing is more related to variations in nasal mucosa temperature due
to the cooling effect of the airstream than to variations in the nasal
airflow (8,21-23). According to these studies, an adequate nasal airflow
is necessary for providing temperature changes in the nasal mucosa. As
such, the correlation between objective measurements of nasal airflow
and patient-reported evaluation of nasal breathing should be not only
dependent on symptoms of nasal obstruction but should also be dependent
on the level of nasal airflow.
The current study had a three-fold purpose: to find if there is
correlation between patient-reported assessments of nasal breathing and
objective measurements of nasal airflow; to find if this correlation is
dependent on the severity of symptoms of nasal obstruction; and to find
if this correlation is dependent on the level of nasal airflow.