Paranasal sinus mucocele: diagnosis and treatment.

Several controversies still exist regarding the etiopathogenesis, diagnosis, and type of surgical treatment used in response to paranasal sinus mucocele. We wish to contribute to the standardization of therapeutic treatment for paranasal sinus mucocele by reporting our clinical experience in "open surgery." This analysis considers 53 patients--23 males and 30 females (age range: 11-80 years)--affected by frontoethmoidal or sphenoidal sinus mucocele whom we have surgically treated. Patients were classified according to age, sex, previous surgical treatment in the nasal area, symptoms, and acute visual difficulties; 15 patients showed disease in the frontal area, 28 in frontoethmoidal area, and 10 in the posterior ethmoidal or sphenoidal area (or both); in 18 patients the disease had reached the intracranial region. Transfacial approaches were used in all patients who did not show evidence of disease in the intracranial region. Of all the incisions performed 18 were coronal, 16 were paralateral, and 4 were through upper eyebrow approaches; a transnasal endoscopic approach was used in only 1 patient in whom the intracranial region was affected by disease. All patients showed satisfying functional and aesthetic results during and after recuperation.