Background: Chronic rhinosinusitis is a clinical syndrome defined by persistent symptomatic inflammation of the
mucosa of the nasal cavities and paranasal sinuses. Usually, it responds to conservative medical treatment. Cases that
resist medical treatment usually need functional endoscopic sinus surgery. Uncinectomy is the first step in functional
endoscopic sinus surgery.
Objective: to compare between partial and total uncinectomy results in terms of patient symptoms improvement,
operative data (operative time and complications), and postoperative complications in management of localized
maxillary sinusitis.
Methodology: the present study included 40 cases with chronic maxillary sinusitis allocated for functional endoscopic
sinus surgery after failure of medical treatment. The 40 cases were divided into groups (20 cases each). Partial
uncinectomy was done in group A and total uncinectomy was done in group B.
Results: both partial and total uncinectomy were compared in terms of safety and effectiveness. Total uncinectomy had
significantly longer operative time and had more complications when compared to partial uncinectomy. In addition,
total uncinectomy was more effective in relieving headache, anterior nasal discharge and nasal obstruction, while
partial uncinectomy was more effective in relieving postnasal discharge. None of these results reached a statistically
significant value.
Conclusion: compared to total uncinectomy operative time, healing time and complications were less in partial
uncinectomy. Despite that both ar