Carbon dioxide laser vaporization of the inferior turbinate for allergic rhinitis: short-term results.

Carbon dioxide laser vaporization of the turbinate has recently become accepted as a common treatment for allergic rhinitis. Usually, only a single procedure is applied to minimize trauma. However, repeated procedures on separate days are often required to achieve an adequate effect. Therefore, we attempted a new method of vaporization and evaluated the outcome, and also tried to determine which patients have good indications for laser treatment. To widely and deeply vaporize the inferior turbinate, we repeated the procedure 3 times in 1 session after removing the carbon coating from the previous vaporization under nasal endoscopic observation. After the procedure, most patients experienced complete nasal obstruction for 2 or 3 days, but there was no intraoperative or postoperative bleeding or severe pain. All patients obtained improvement of their chief complaints and were satisfied 2 months after the operation. In particular, 60% of the patients were completely relieved of refractory nasal obstruction. Most patients were more satisfied with the effects than are those treated by the usual methods. Completely successful cases (improvement in all symptoms and complete satisfaction obtained) were selected and were compared with other cases. Favorable prognostic factors are more severe complaints, longer symptomatic periods, stronger allergic reactions, and worse nasal resistance and its greater improvement with administration of decongestant nasal drops. This method may be especially accepted by patients with severe complaints, in particular nasal obstruction, who do not experience enough relief with conservative therapies or have enough time to make frequent visits to an outpatient clinic over a period of several weeks.