The nose, sinuses and base of the skull are among the most complex anatomical areas of the body – and their conditions have always been a challenge for surgeons. In recent years, the use of endoscopes has caused a real revolution in their approach. Now, its use endoscopic surgery for the treatment of inflammatory diseases of the nose and paranasal sinuses (“sinusitis, sinusitis”) is the Standard of Care in adults and children.

The endoscope doesn’t just help to avoid incisions – more importantly, functional endoscopic surgery respects the function of the paranasal sinuseskeeping the natural drainage channels open thus helping to avoid complications and recurrences.

Indications for the use of endoscopes in the surgical management of chronic sinusitis include:

1) Cases of chronic paranasal sinusitis (with or without nasal polyps) in adults and in children over 7-8 years of age, with a significant burden on the child’s daily life that have not responded to complete and thorough conservative treatment.

2) Complications of sinusitis, which can involve either the eye (abscess, persistent inflammation of the orbit) – in which case endoscopic drainage of the abscess is the only way to avoid blindness, or the brain (endocrine abscess, Potts puffy tumor), where recently we have shown that endoscopic management is more appropriate.

However, the use of endoscopes is not limited to inflammatory diseases – benign and malignant tumors such as olfactory neuroblastomas, squamous cell carcinomas, adenocarcinomas, juvenile angiofibromas, inverted papillomas and osteomas they can occur in children and adults – and the endoscope is the ideal means of access.

In the endoscopic center of the Head and Neck Surgery Clinic, being an international center of reference, we have one of the largest experiences worldwide in the treatment of benign and malignant paranasal and skull base tumors worldwide, having operated on more than 800 such tumors in the last fifteen years.

At the same time, together with the neurosurgical team of the HYGEIA hospital, advancing the use of the endoscope AND endocranium, we created a new specialty – endoscopic nasal-neurosurgical oncology.

Because in endoscopic rhino-neurosurgery the surgical manipulations of the brain and vital nervous structures (eg cranial nerves) are minimal, the outcome of the patients is particularly good. The improved image of the endoscope helps to completely remove tumors, while the absence of scars makes this access more attractive to patients for aesthetic reasons.