Subjective feeling of nasal obstruction and its response to nasal steroids in the elderly

Abstract

Objectives: This study aims to compare the effectiveness of topical nasal steroids for nasal obstruction symptoms between advancedage patients and young-middle age patients based on acoustic rhinometry values and correlations with mucociliary clearance.Patients and Methods: Our study population consisted of 27 advanced aged patients (15 males, 12 females; mean age 67 years;range, 65 to 76) (group 1) and 36 young-middle aged patients (20 males, 16 females; mean age 36.1 years; range, 15 to 49 years)(group 2). Patients with a history of allergic rhinitis (AR) with positive skin prick tests were referred from the Department of RespiratoryMedicine. All patients were evaluated with objective and subjective methods before and after using topical nasal steroids for sixweeks. We used rhinometric evaluation and saccharin test as objective methods and assessed patients with nasal obstructionsymptom evaluation (NOSE) and visual analog scale (VAS) as subjective methods.Results: Baseline subjective scores of group 1 were significantly lower than group 2 (p