gms | German Medical Science

Introduction: About 12% of all malignoms in the head and neck area are malignant tumours of the internal nose and the paranasal sinus. 40–60% of these are in the maxillary sinus, 15% in the ethmoid cells, 2% in the sphenoidal- and frontal sinus and in 20% the whole paranasal sinuses are concerned.

The patients of the years 2008/2009 of our clinic should be analysed how frequent and which differential diagnosis are possible at unilateral maxillary sinus diseases and reconsider to the current literature.

Methods: We analyzed the patient documents of our clinic with maxillary sinus surgery at the years 2008/2009. Particularly surgery reports and histological findings were scanned. This data was compared with the article from Jae Yong Lee from South Korea [1].

Results: In the analyzed 2 years 102 infundibulotomies were performed, 71 of these unilateral. The apportionment of male and female on the one hand and the distribution of the both years on the other hand were almost identically. In 54% of the histological examination it is a matter of polyposal mucosa, in 5,5% squamous cell carcinoma and 1,4% rabdomyosarkoma. The number of malicious tumours were in both groups (Magdeburg and South Korea) nearly the same.

Conclusion: The patients from Magdeburg and South Korea were comparable. Especially the rate of malicious findings of the paranasal sinus were equivalent. In 7%, independent of the ethnic background, we found at unilateral maxillary disease an malicious tumour. The hypothesis "In case of unilateral paranasal sinus findings always think of malicious tumours", which you can read in every schoolbook is only correct to a limited extend.