How to measure functional outcome after nose surgery
Reviewed by Eduardo Morera Serna

The authors of this paper perform a systematic review of the literature on two of the most popular patient-reported measures for nasal obstruction, the Nasal Obstruction Symptom Evaluation (NOSE) and the visual analog scale (VAS). They compare pre and postoperative values with normal values in asymptomatic individuals and the general population. The results of the study show that nose surgery provides the patient with a significant improvement in subjective nasal patency, achieving normal or near normal values in most of series. Precise assessment of nasal patency is a controversial issue. No objective instrumentalised exploration, including acoustic rhinometry and rhinomanometry, has achieved general acceptance due to their frequent lack of correlation with subjective patient perception. Health-related quality-of-life (QOL) measures such as the NOSE or the VAS, both validated for septoplasty and functional rhinoplasty, have emerged as the most powerful tools to determine functional outcomes after nose surgery. Probably surgeons and researchers should use these patient-reported measures, instead of the imprecise objective tests, to estimate the success of surgical outcomes. A very interesting article.

A systematic review of patient-reported nasal obstruction scores: defining normative and symptomatic ranges in surgical patients.
Rhee JS, Sullivan CD, Frank DO, et al.
JAMA FACIAL PLASTIC SURGERY
6 March 2014 [Epub ahead of print].