A Comparative Study of Surgical Outcome of Endoscopic Endonasal Dacrocystorhinostomy with and Without Stent

OBJECTIVE: To compare the surgical outcome of endoscopic endonasal dacrocystorhinostomy (DCR)  with and without stent in patients with chronic dacrocystitis due to nasolacrimal duct block.

METHODS:  This was a prospective study  done in Mallareddy institute of medical sciences, suraram involving 60 patients who were diagnosed with chronic dacrocystitis  and underwent endonasal DCR between august 2022 to july 2024. Out of 60 patients, 30 were done with stent and other 30 without stent. Follow up was done for 6 months. Evaluation was done on subjective and objective assessment.

RESULTS: The outcome was evaluated at the end of 3 and 6 months using chi square test. . The success rate at the end of six months was 90% with stented patients and 93.3% with non-stented patients (p-value - 0.64); at six months. . The final endoscopy at the end of 6 months showed 93.3% of patients who underwent stenting had a patent rhinostomy opening, and 90% of those who were not stented had a patent opening.

CONCLUSION: Our study showed that patients with chronic dacryocystitis who underwent endonasal DCR with and without stenting had almost similar results. There was no significant difference in the outcome. So, we concluded that generally all the patients should be considered for endonasal DCR without a stent, except in special cases like revision endonasal DCR, lacrimal gland cysts, fistulas, and patients with sinonasal pathology, in whom silicon stents can be preferred