The Utility of Clinicopathological Correlation of Sinonasal Masses in a Tertiary Hospital

BACKGROUND Sinonasal masses are commonly seen lesions in ENT practice with multiple aetiological factors. We wanted to study the clinico-pathological features of nasal mass specimens in a tertiary hospital and evaluate the utility of routine histopathological examination of the surgically removed nasal tissue specimens. METHODS All the histologically examined specimens of patients clinically presenting with nasal or sinonasal lesions over a period of one year were retrospectively studied and analyzed. RESULTS Out of total 36 patients with masses, 21 were males (58.3 %) and 15 (41.7 %) were females. The age ranged from 10 to 75 years with a mean age of 31.4 years and maximum patients were in the third decade (37.5 %). The most common presenting clinical symptom was nasal obstruction that was seen in 33 patients (91.6 %). Computed tomography (CT) scan was done in 94.5 % of cases prior to the surgical intervention. One fifth of the sinonasal lesions were neoplastic as per histopathology examination. The clinicopathological agreement percentage for detection of the nature of the nasal mass was 88.9 %. The applied interrater reliability in Cohen's kappa coefficient (κ) showed moderate agreement (0.55). CONCLUSIONS The clinical similarity between the histologically different lesions is common and may lead to improper management; so, correlation of clinical, radiologic and pathologic features is of utmost importance for accurate diagnosis and the policy of discarding a surgically removed nasal lesion which clinically appears unremarkable should be totally avoided. KEY WORDS Nasal Polyp, Pathology, Sinonasal Carcinoma