Objective evaluation of anterior septal surgical reconstruction.

Fifty patients who underwent nasal septal reconstruction for anterior septal deformities were examined preoperatively and postoperatively with anterior mask rhinomanography. A high degree of correlation was found between the reduction in nasal resistance after operation and the patients' subjective assessment of improvement. Those patients who improved subjectively had a mean decrease in nasal resistance of 1.2 cm H2O/L/sec, whereas those patients who indicated no improvement had a mean increase in nasal resistance of 0.2 cm H2O/L/sec.