1 Answers
Functional endoscopic sinus surgery is a minimally invasive procedure which uses nasal endoscopes to enlarge the nasal drainage pathways of the paranasal sinuses to improve sinus ventilation and allow access of topical medications. This procedure is generally used to treat inflammatory and infectious sinus diseases, including chronic rhinosinusitis that do not respond to drugs, nasal polyps, some cancers, and decompression of eye sockets/optic nerve in Graves ophthalmopathy.
In the surgery, an otolaryngologist removes the uncinate process of the ethmoid bone, while visualizing the nasal passage using a fiberoptic endoscope. FESS can be performed under local anesthesia as an outpatient procedure. Generally patients experience only minimal discomfort during and after surgery. The procedure can take from 2 to 4 hours to complete.