Results
159 patients presented with epistaxis in the pre-implementation period
(22.7 per month), and 86 in the post-implementation period (10.8 per
month).
In the pre-implementation period, epistaxis terminated with conservative
measures only in 83.0% of patients. The remaining 17.0% were packed
with non-dissolvable packs in A&E, all of whom were admitted to
hospital. In the post-implementation period, 66.3% terminated with
conservative measures, 5.8% received non-dissolvable packs, and were
admitted, and 27.9% received dissolvable packing (TXA-soaked
NasoPore®). 29.2% of those receiving
NasoPore® required further packing with
non-dissolvable packs and were subsequently admitted. 2 patients packed
with NasoPore® re-attended with epistaxis (8.3%), and
3 patients who were discharged following conservative measures
re-attended (5.3%). See table 1.
27/159 patients in the pre-implementation group required more than
conservative measures (17%), all of
these required admission (100%).
29/86 patients in the post-implementation group required more than
conservative measures (33.7%). Of these, 12 patients were admitted
(41.0%). Therefore, there was a statistically significant (p
< 0.0001) reduction of 59.0% in admissions, after discounting
those patients managed with conservative measures only.
After including the 2 patients who re-attended and were admitted
following NasoPore® with TXA administration, the
proportion admitted post-intervention rises to 48.3%. This results in a
decrease in admissions of 51.7% in admissions, still statistically
significant (p < 0.0001).