Variants of Middle Turbinate Concha Bullosa and its Relationship with Chronic Rhinosinusitis

Background: The concha bullosa is a unilateral or bilateral aeration of the middle turbinate. For a minimum of twelve consecutive weeks, chronic rhinosinusitis is characterized by the presence of a minimum of 2 of the four cardinal symptoms (hyposmia/anosmia, facial pain/pressure, postnasal discharge, as well as nasal obstruction). Aim: To differentiate between types of middle turbinate concha bullosa and to determine its correlation with chronic rhinosinusitis. Patients and methods: This prospective research has been performed on 214 cases suffering from common symptoms of sinusitis and investigated by CT Nose and PNS; there were 100 patients whose CT proved that they have middle turbinate concha bullosa. Patients presented to Al-Azhar University hospitals and Damanhour Medical National Institute in the period from January 2023 to June 2024. Results: There were 49 (49%) patients who had extensive-type concha bullosa, 37 (37%) cases had a bulbous- type, and 14 (14%) cases had a lamellar type. The most common variant was the pure extensive type (41%), followed by pure bulbous (33%) and pure lamellar (14%). Less common variants included air cells within the bulbous type (4%), air cells within the extensive type (5%) and mucosal thickening within the extensive type (3%). The overall incidence of chronic rhinosinusitis in the study was 42%. Conclusion: The frequent common variant of concha bullosa was the extensive type (49%), and there is no statistically significant correlation has been discovered between the anatomical type of concha bullosa and the incidence of chronic rhinosinusitis.