Affiliations: Department of Otolaryngology, Mie University School of Medicine, 2-174 Edobashi, Tsu, Mie 514, Japan
Note: [1] Based on a presentation on the Fourth International Congress of Biorheology, Tokyo, Japan, July 1981.
Note: [] Accepted by: Editor A. Silberberg and Guest Editor T. Takishima
Abstract: Nasal mucociliary clearance was measured in both healthy subjects and patients with chronic sinusitis using saccharin granule technique. Nasal mucociliary transit time (ST) was significantly slower in the patients with chronic sinusitis compared with that in controls (p<0.005). Nasal mucus collected from each nasal cavity was used for in vitro bullfrog palate clearance studies and compared to the in vivo nasal ST. Mucociliary clearance rate (MTR) on frog palate was 12.5 ± 2.5 mm/min in the mucus from control subjects, 6.1 ± 1.5 mm/min in the mucus from the patients. The difference was statistically significant (p<0.005). The MTR on frog palate in the patients whose nasal ST was within normal range was significantly slower than that in controls (p<0.005), but not significantly different from that in the patients whose nasal ST was over the normal range. These results suggest that the nasal mucous properties which decreased the mucociliary clearance on frog palate did not contribute to the mucociliary clearance of the patients who had a normal one. No significant correlation existed between MTR on frog palate and nasal ST in both control and chronic sinusitis. In chronic sinusitis patients, decelerated nasal ST was recovered significantly by normal saline nebulization compared with the value before the nebulization (p<0.01). None of the significant change of ST was observed in control before and after the nebulization.
