Endoscopic Cauterization of sphenopalatine artery in posterior epistaxis- Our experience

Aniruddha Majumdar; Nirmalya Samanta; Debasish Mallick

Volume : X, Issue : IV, April - 2020

Endoscopic Cauterization of sphenopalatine artery in posterior epistaxis- Our experience

Aniruddha Majumdar, Nirmalya Samanta, Debasish Mallick

Abstract :

Epistaxis is one of the commonest emergencies in Otorhinolaryngology. The management of epistaxis sometime becomes challenging for us especially posterior epistaxis. Intractable posterior epistaxis sometimes can be life threatening because of hypotension, anaemia, aspiration & associated co–morbidities1. Most of the cases are managed with conventional methods in the form of anterior & posterior nasal packing, chemical cautery and failure leads to need for more invasive techniques like ligation of internal maxillary artery & external carotid artery. But these are not entirely satisfactory procedures because of high failure rate, co–morbidity & occasional significant complication. Over the last decade endoscopic ligation or cauterization of sphenopalatine artery has emerged as a viable & minimally invasive alternative. In this article, we describe our experience with endoscopic cauterization of sphenopalatine artery in management of severe posterior epistaxis in 16 patients in which conservative treatment had failed. There was no further episode of epistaxis & morbidity with an average follow–up of 9 months in 14 out of 16 cases. Only 2 patients had anterior epistaxis in follow up which was managed with anterior nasal packing.