The Change of Nasal Patency in Postural Variaton Measured by Acoustic Rhinometry

Acoustic rhinometry which was designed by Hillberg in 1989 is a simple, accurate, obiective, quantitative and non-invasive diagnostic tool in evaluation of the geometry of the nasal cavity by the acoustic reflection from the nasal cavity. In this study, we introduced a comparative, quantitative analyzing measurements of the nasal passage geometry after 15 minutes in different positions which were performed in 30 healthy medical students who had not had previous histories of rhinological disease and had been free from any acute nasal symptoms. Under equal environmental temperature and humidity, we measured 1) distance, 2) volume from the nostril to the second notch, 3) area at the second notch, 4) volume from the nostril to area at 7cm into the nasal cavity, 5) symptom score on both sides of nose. As a result, it can be concluded that the overall nasal patency of both sides does not always keep constant. Postural change significantly aftects the nasal patency, especially in wider side. The useful parameter which represents the nasal patency in this study is the volume of nasal cavity rather than the distance to second notch, the area at second notch, the volume to second notch and the symptom score. KCI Citation Count: 0