Balloon Sinuplasty is a surgical procedure to aid those suffering from chronic sinusitis but do not see results with medications. A balloon is placed into the sinus cavity that is inflamed and gradually inflated to remove the swelling. A catheter then drains the fluid that has accumulated.
Sinuplasty can be offered as an alternative to conventional sinus surgery. It involves removing bone or tissue from the sinuses, allowing drainage. Continue reading to learn more about medical balloon tests.
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Is Balloon Sinuplasty safe?
Every surgical procedure comes with a risk. Sinus surgery, which involves surgical removal of obstructions inside the sinuses is more risk than minimally performed Balloon Sinuplasty. One of the most significant advantages to safety is the substantial reduction in bleeding.
Since the balloon was designed to gently move the sinus tissue away instead of removing it, the chance of bleeding is very minimal. In 2007, CLEAR research several patients who had traditional sinus surgery while others received Sinuplasty Balloon. Results showed that those who underwent this procedure showed "statistically significant differences of postoperative pain."
Is Balloon Sinuplasty effective?
For the CLEAR study Patients were reexamined one year after the procedure. 85percent of patients were found to maintain open sinus passageways following the first procedure. The study found that "SNOT-20 scores were statistically better than pre-operative scores and show continued improvement."
Two years after the initial Sinuplasty procedure 65 of the 109 original patients were evaluated. If tested again it was found that the subjects had continued to improve as indicated on the scores of SNOT-20 at the time of one year.