title: Patient-centered decision making: the role of the baseline SNOT-22 in predicting outcomes for medical management of chronic rhinosinusitis.
abstract: For patients with chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS), the decision to elect continued medical management vs surgery is complex and involves tradeoffs between benefits, risks, and overall effectiveness of each therapy. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether baseline disease-specific quality of life (QOL) can assist in predicting outcomes in patients with refractory CRS who elect continued medical management.
  
  
  
  CRS patients electing medical management were enrolled in a prospective, multi-institutional cohort study. Patients were stratified into pretreatment 22-item Sino-Nasal Outcome Test (SNOT-22) subgroups based on 10-point score increments (eg, 10 to 19, 20 to 29, 30 to 39, etc.) to capture potential outcome differences by baseline SNOT-22 disease burden. The proportion of patients achieving minimal clinically important difference (MCID≥9 points) and relative improvement (%) for each score category were calculated.
  
  
  
  Seventy-five CRS patients with a mean ± standard deviation pretreatment SNOT-22 score of 45.2 ± 16.6 were followed for a mean of 14.9 months. The majority of participants electing medical therapy failed to improve 1 MCID (57%) with a mean relative score improvement of 16%. Overall, 37% of patients maintained baseline SNOT-22 QOL status, whereas 20% of patients deteriorated >1 MCID. When treatment crossover patients (to endoscopic sinus surgery [ESS]) were included (n = 117), approximately 1 in 4 (27%) patients achieved an MCID.
  
  
  
  Results from this study suggest that the majority of CRS patients electing ongoing medical management with low baseline disease-specific QOL impairment maintain stable QOL with continued medical management. Furthermore, of CRS patients electing ongoing medical therapy, approximately 1 in 4 patients achieved MCID, whereas 1 in 5 experienced deterioration by >1 MCID.
authors: Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, University of California, Davis Medical Center, Sacramento, CA.
authors: Toby O
authors: TO
authors: Steele
authors: Division of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Department of Surgery, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
authors: Luke
authors: L
authors: Rudmik
authors: Division of Rhinology and Sinus/Skull Base Surgery, Oregon Sinus Center, Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, OR.
authors: Jess C
authors: JC
authors: Mace
authors: Division of Otolaryngology, Department of Surgery, University of California San Diego, San Diego, CA.
authors: Adam S
authors: AS
authors: DeConde
authors: Sinus and Skull Base Surgery Program, Division of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Department of Surgery, University of Utah School of Medicine, Salt Lake City, UT.
authors: Jeremiah A
authors: JA
authors: Alt
authors: Division of Rhinology and Sinus/Skull Base Surgery, Oregon Sinus Center, Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, OR.
authors: Timothy L
authors: TL
authors: Smith
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002908:Chronic Disease; D003657:Decision Making; D004724:Endoscopy; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010358:Patient Participation; D011446:Prospective Studies; D011788:Quality of Life; D012220:Rhinitis / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000601:surgery; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D012852:Sinusitis / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000601:surgery; D016896:Treatment Outcome
keywords: case-control studies; medical therapy management; outcome assessment; patient outcome assessment; sinusitis