THE SUBMUCOUS RESECTION OF THE LATERAL NASAL WALL IN CHRONIC EMPYEMA OF THE ANTRUM, ETHMOID AND SPHENOID.

Abstract

A certain reaction is setting in against radical operations in the treatment of chronic nasal accessory sinus disease. This is due to several causes. Those relative to the sinuses under discussion, i. e., the antrum, ethmoid and sphenoid are as follows: Many unnecessary radical operations have been performed. Cases which had proved obstinate to conservative measures have been operated on radically only to demonstrate that but a moderate degree of pathologic change had taken place, and that the chronicity of the disease had been established by insufficient drainage or by some anatomic peculiarity in the size or shape of the cavities. Of those patients operated on radically through the canine fossa by the most widely accepted methods, with perfectly satisfactory results as far as curing the discharge is concerned, some suffer such distressing symptoms, due to trauma of the soft tissues of the cheek and to extensive destruction of the