Turbinectomy Surgery

Turbinectomy is a surgical procedure that opens up your nasal passages by removing bone and soft tissue.

Twenty percent of the population in the world is suffering from nasal airway obstruction.

The most common cause of chronic nasal airway obstruction is hypertrophied inferior turbinates.

It is a condition which results from allergic or vasomotor rhinitis. The nasal airway obstruction results in sleep apnea or snoring.

Turbinates are soft tissue sponges that exist within the nose. In patients with severe allergies and other problems, the turbinates can swell to large size.

It results in inability to breathe through the nose. If you have a problem in breathing through the nose, then turbinectomy or turbinate reduction is recommended.

Turbinectomy is recommended when you have a:

• Deviated nasal septum
• Swelling of the adenoids
• Swelling of the turbinate due to allergy, chronic inflammation or chronic sinusitis
• Nasal polyps or other tumors obstructing the nose

Turbinectomy procedure:

Turbidectomy procedure can be performed in the office or outpatient setting without nasal packing by the physicians. Turbinectomy procedure is performed in conjunction with other nasal surgeries such as rhinoplasty, sinus surgery and septoplasty.

When turbinectomy is performed for sleep apnea or snoring, the surgery will be in different forms depending on your anatomy.

The surgeon can remove only bone or bone and soft tissue. The surgery can be achieved by cauterization, electrocautery or microdebrider.

Microdebrider is a high speed and tiny device that shaves soft t issue. Physicians use the computer tomography (CT) which is a guided imaging system for clearly viewing the surgical site.

When microdebrider is inserted, it quickly and accurately removes the desired tissue leaving the adjacent tissues intact.

The complication associated with nasal surgery is bleeding. The nose should be packed for number of days after surgery to prevent excessive bleeding and it also causes pot-operative discomfort.

A newly developed coagulating agent called costasis is used to stop bleeding at the surgical site. Costasis should be sprayed on the surgical area to control bleeding and patients need not undergo packing.

Costasis provides extubation after surgery and makes recovery process smoother. Lasers are being used to shrink or reduce turbinates and reduce bleeding during surgery. The precision outcomes give laser surgery an advantage over traditional surgeries.

Recovery from turbinectomy surgery:

In most situations, pack should be placed in your nose to control bleeding. You have to visit the doctor to remove the packs. After undergoing turbinectomy procedure, the nose should be kept moist.

The nose should be irrigated for every two hours while awake. After nasal packs are removed, you can use saline sprays several times a day to prevent crusts forming in your nose.

One week rest is necessary and one should avoid excessive talking, smiling, hard chewing and extra strenuous activities. There are minimal discomforts with turbinectomy procedure for most of the patients and improvement in breathing comes within two to six weeks after the procedure.

Turbinectomy benefits:

• Nasal airway passages have been improved
• Improvement in symptoms like nasal discharge
• Improvement in frequent sneezing
• Improvement in recurrent rhino-sinusitis

Surgical complications:

• After the surgery, the nose was still blocked and experience symptoms of nasal obstruction
• Removing too much turbinate tissue causes dry, crusty nose that cannot warm or moisten the air effectively.
• Severe bleeding in ten percent turbinectomy patients