Background: One of the most frequent causes of nasal obstruction is inferior turbinate hypertrophy. It can be treated medically or surgically.
Objectives: to compare between bilateral partial inferior turbinectomy under general anesthesia and bilateral inferior turbinate reduction by coblation under local anesthesia regarding intraoperative and postoperative bleeding, postoperative nasal obstruction, hyposmia, snoring, pain and crusts.
Patients and methods: The study included 40 patients with inferior turbinate hypertrophy, divided into two groups. Group (A) included 20 patients underwent partial inferior turbinectomy under general anesthesia and group (B) included 20 patients underwent turbinate reduction by coblation under local anesthesia.
Results: Nasal obstruction improved significantly in both groups (p-value> 0.001). The improvement was more with group (B) after 1 week (1.8±0.8) than group (A) (2.3±0.9) without significant difference (p-value= 0.114). Nasal obstruction improved equally in both groups after 1 month without significant difference (p-value= 0.925) while improvement was more with group (A) (0.5±0.7) than group (B) (0.7 ± 0.6) after 4 months without significant difference (p-value= 0.398). Hyposmia improved in both groups after 4 months without significant difference between studied groups (p-value= 0.289). Snoring improved in both groups after 4 months without significant difference between studied groups (p-value= 0.086). Intraoperative bleeding, postoperative pain and crusts were more with group (A) with high significant difference (p-value< 0.001). Postoperative bleeding was more with group (A) with significant difference (p-value= 0.01).
Conclusion: Partial inferior turbinectomy and coblation are effective and safe methods for relief of nasal obstruction with less postoperative bleeding, pain and crusts with coblation.