Influence of passive humidification on nasal conditioning.
BACKGROUND
Passive humidifiers (PH) have been beneficial to upper and lower airway humidity, especially in patients who are in a long-time ventilated intensive care unit. The goal of this pilot study was to provide nasal conditioning data and measure the benefit of a nasal PH to spontaneously breathing, conscious subjects.


METHODS
Eleven healthy volunteers had to wear a PH for 1 hour, which was introduced into both nasal vestibules. The PH had a heat and moisture restoring body of polyurethane foam with an open-pore structure. Before and after application of the nasal PH, nasal conditioning was measured and nasal symptoms were assessed by the participants.


RESULTS
Ten minutes after removal of the PH a significant increase was observed for the scores for nasal patency and nasal humidity.


CONCLUSIONS
We hypothesize that the nasal PH could provide a valuable contribution to the supportive therapy of diseases that accompany nasal mucosal dryness.
Keck
Tilman
T
Department of Otorhinolaryngology, University of Ulm, Ulm, Germany. tilman.keck@uniklinik-ulm.de
Dürr
Jochen
J
Leiacker
Richard
R
Rozsasi
Ajnacska
A
Rettinger
Gerhard
G
Rother
Timo
T
D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006813:Humidity; D008297:Male; D008397:Masks; D009297:Nasal Mucosa / Q000502:physiology*; D009666:Nose; D010147:Pain Measurement; D010865:Pilot Projects; D012121:Respiration, Artificial / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D017694:Rewarming / Q000295:instrumentation; D013696:Temperature; D012122:Ventilators, Mechanical