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Background and Objectives: Epistaxis is a common emergency for otorhinolaryngologists. Although the aetiological factors have been widely studied, they remain subject to debate. The role of meteorological variables has been discussed in recent years, but results have been inconsistent. Given a lack of prior data, the aim of our study was to identify the meteorological variables that influence the frequency of visits and hospital admission for epistaxis in a city with a cold semi-arid climate in Spain., Methods: Case-control study., Cases: patients who attended the accident and emergency department of a secondary level hospital for epistaxis over a 9-year period (2011-2019). Controls were established by simple random sampling among emergency rooms visits in general (patients who attended the same centre over the same period of time). Sociodemographic, clinical and meteorological variables were all taken into account., Results: 2749 patients in the epistaxis group and 2764 in the control group. There were significant differences in the epistaxis group, with a higher proportion of male (62.85%) and older patients. Univariate and multivariate analysis revealed that the daily minimum temperature and maximum wind speed were factors significantly associated with the onset of epistaxis. In addition, logistic regression analysis showed that decreases in minimum temperature and increases in maximum wind speed were associated with an increase in epistaxis (p < 0.01). No association was found between hospital admission and the weather conditions., Conclusion: Our findings suggest that low minimum temperatures and high wind speeds are associated with the number of visits to hospital accident and emergency departments for epistaxis, but not with hospital admission., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Introduction: Patient satisfaction with septoturbinoplasty was measured using the subjective visual analogue scale (VAS) and Nasal Obstruction Symptom Evaluation (NOSE) scale. In addition, those factors that impacted satisfaction were confirmed., Materials and Methods: We conducted an observational study of patients who underwent septoturbinoplasty. Age, sex, smoking habit, duration of improvement, postoperative complications, type of packing and surgeon were analysed. The results were compared using the VAS and NOSE scale., Results: The improvement experienced with surgery corresponded to 69.80±26.97 points on the VAS 42.65±22.9 points (p <0.01) on the NOSE scale. A strong, direct correlation between the two scales (r = 0.79; p <0.01) was achieved. Surgeon, presence of complications, smoking habit and type of packing were not associated with the improvement experienced on the VAS or NOSE scale. Patients under 30 years of age and patients with permanent improvement achieved higher levels of satisfaction on both scales (p <0.01). Women showed a stronger tendency to perceive their improvement as temporary (p <0.01)., Conclusions: Patients who underwent septoturbinoplasty experienced a subjectively measured improvement in nasal obstruction. The VAS and the NOSE scale were strongly correlated with one another. Sex, age and duration of improvement (temporary versus permanent) impacted patient perception; surgeon, smoking habit and type of packing did not.

Purpose: To determine the incidence and distribution of care in relation to urgent otorhinolaryngologic pathologies by the different medical specialist units., Methods: A descriptive, observational and retrospective study was conducted of patients seen by the Emergency Service at a secondary hospital over the course of 7 years (2011-2017)., Results: A total of 546,701 patients were seen during the period in question, of which 64,054 presented with otorhinolaryngologic symptoms. The attendance rate was 450/1000 inhabitants/year. The most frequent diagnoses were upper respiratory tract infection, with 13,639 cases (21.3%), tonsillopharyngitis, with 10,150 cases (15.8%) and vertigo/dizziness with 8761 cases (13.7%). Patients seen by the Hospital Emergency Service physicians and those referred to the Otorhinolaryngology or Paediatric Units were analysed both together and separately. The Hospital Emergency Service dealt with 77.1% of the cases, and referred 15.4% to the Otorhinolaryngology Unit and 7.5% to the Paediatrics Unit. Within the subgroup of patients referred to the Otorhinolaryngology Unit, the most frequent diagnoses were problems related to inflammatory ear disease (25.6%), followed by cervicofacial trauma (15.4%) and bleeding with otorhinolaryngologic symptoms (12.5%). The percentage of hospital admissions for the entire sample was 3%, while for patients referred to the Otorhinolaryngology Unit this figure was 6.8%., Conclusions: A large percentage of patients presenting at the Hospital Emergency Service do so with otorhinolaryngologic symptoms, and the vast majority are treated effectively by the physicians in that service and are referred to the specialist services on the basis of sound criteria.