Paranasal sinus mucoceles with visual disturbance

Objective

Paranasal sinus mucoceles may cause visual disturbance in patients because of their close proximity to the orbit. We aimed to investigate visual prognosis to determine whether it is influenced by the interval before surgery and the severity of visual disturbance, and to heighten the physician's awareness of the occurrence of this disease.

Methods

We retrospectively reviewed eight surgically treated patients with paranasal sinus mucoceles accompanied by visual disturbances between March 2005 and January 2009, and examined the visual acuity outcome of the patients.

Results

Four patients with a mild visual acuity loss showed improvement after surgical drainage within 1 month after onset. Two patients with visual disturbances persisting for more than 1 year did not show postoperative improvements. Although two patient's preoperative visual acuity loss was worse than the ability to count fingers, they showed a remarkable improvement after surgery.

Conclusions

These results show the importance of diagnosing and treating paranasal sinus mucoceles with visual disturbance as soon as possible. In addition, the improvement of visual acuity can be expected if surgery is performed within 1 month after onset, and the patient's preoperative visual acuity loss is mild. However, if patients with severe visual acuity loss consult otolaryngologists at a later date, surgery may still be considered worthwhile.