Effects of Preservation Rhinoplasty Nasal Valve Angle and Area

Nasal Obstruction Symptom Evaluation Scale (NOSE)

The NOSE will be used to measure the quality of life related to nasal obstruction. It is a validated instrument specifically designed for use in patients with nasal obstruction. According to this scale patients are asked to evaluate difficulty breathing in a general way and specifically the difficulty in breathing through the nose, breathing during sleep, and severity of their nasal congestion. The severity of the symptoms is recorded on a scale of 0 to 4, with 0 being the absence of a problem and 4 being a serious problem. The possible scores range from 0 to 20 and the higher scores indicate a higher degree of nasal obstruction. The sum of the scores is multiplied by 5 so as to obtain a final score ranging from 0 to 100, with higher values associated with poorer quality of life. The scale will be applied at the base line and at the end of 12 months.

The internal and external nasal valve levels of patients scheduled for septorhinoplasty surgery will be prospectively examined preoperatively and postoperatively with a high-resolution 3-plan (axial-sagittal-coronal) CT study. Axial CT studies will be obtained with the latest generation, 128-channel, multi-slice CT scanners (Siemens SOMATOM Definition AS+128, Forchheim, Germany) with a slice thickness of 0.5 to 1.25 mm in the bone algorithm. Axial slices will be acquired from the top of the frontal sinuses to the bottom of the maxillary incisors. Studies will be made from random selections and without correlation to diagnosis or indication.

Axial data will be transferred to the workstation (Siemens Syngo Via Workstation) for postprocessing and measurements will be performed on this workstation.