Sensitivity of Plain Sinus Radiographs at Detecting Chronic Maxillary Sinusitis in Patients Who Had Maxillary Antral Lavage in Benin-City

Abstract

Sinusitis is inflammation of the sinuses and it is better referred to as rhinosinusitis as it usually involves the nasal cavities. It is a common illness world-wide and can be diagnosed clinically, radiologically, by laboratory evaluation or antral procedures. The antral radiographs of 83 patients who had maxillary antral lavage done were retrieved and the findings recorded. Similarly the antral lavage findings were also recorded. The radiographs were reported by trained radiologists while the antral lavages were done by trained otorhinolaryngologists. The data were then analyzed using SPSS version 17 with the level of statistical significance set at 0.05. Binary classification test was conducted for the right and left maxillary sinuses separately. Chronic sinusitis of the left maxillary antra occurred more commonly than the right. There was significant correlation between radiographic and antral findings. High proportion of false positives and negatives were reported and the binary classification tests for each maxillary sinus showed that the sensitivity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value and accuracy were not high and the specificity was low. The sensitivity pattern of sinus radiography at detecting chronic sinusitis is not high. Radiography may only be utilized for the diagnosis of chronic sinusitis in areas where better imaging modalities like CT or MRI are unavailable or not justified.