Endoscopic nasal dacryocystorhinostomy: results and advantages over the external approach

Dacryocystorhinostomy (DCR) is a procedure used to create a lachrymal drainage pathway into the nasal cavity in order to reestablish the permanent drainage of a previously obstructed excretory system. Aim: to report our results obtained with endoscopic DCR technique, describing its advantages and disadvantages Study design: Historic cohort. Material and Method: we retrospectively analyzed thirty-two dacryocystorhinostomies performed at the Otorhinolaryngology Discipline from March 2002 to January 2004 on patients with post-lachrymal sac obstruction confirmed by dacryocystorhinography (DCG). In all cases, the patients were submitted to probing with Crawford probe. Results: surgery was bilateral in ten of the twenty-two analyzed patients, totaling thirty-two procedures, twenty-nine of which were primary surgeries and three revision procedures after unsuccessful external DCR. Our success rate was 79.12%. Conclusions: endoscopic DCR proved to be a safe and low morbidity technique, which also avoids facial scars and maintains the mechanism of the lachrymal pump, with results similar to those obtained with external DCR.