title: Therapeutic measures in allergic rhinopathy cases resistent to conventional treatment.
abstract: If medical treatment fails to cure an allergic or vasomotor rhinopathy, we have to look for surgical procedures in trying to relieve the symptoms. Vidian neurectomy is a well known technique, but there still is much discussion about the technique and the long term results. With cryosurgery of the inferior nasal turbinates we obtain a fibrosis and shrinking of these hypertrophied tissues. The nitrous oxide cryosurgery unit we use relies on the Joule-Thomson effect. The specially designed cryoprobe for intranasal procedures is against the medial wall of the turbinate for 2 minutes with freezing to between -50 degrees and -60 degrees C. Thirty-seven patients entered our study. In vasomotor rhinopathy 17 out of 24 patients were completely free of symptoms for at least 3 months, while 4 were better. In allergic rhinopathy, the results are good but we did not reach this high number of completely cured patients. Most of the patients showed a relapse after 3 to 6 months. This is probably due to a regrowth of the autonomic nerve endings. We did not note side efects in the patients included in our study.
mesh_terms: D002908:Chronic Disease; D003452:Cryosurgery / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D009297:Nasal Mucosa / Q000601:surgery*; D009609:Nitrous Oxide / Q000627:therapeutic use; D006255:Rhinitis, Allergic, Seasonal / Q000601:surgery*; D014666:Vasomotor System / Q000601:surgery*
chemical_list: D009609:Nitrous Oxide