A viable solution for isolated post-nasal drip?
Reviewed by Jennifer K Stott

This retrospective, single-centre case series looked at a cohort of patients with postnasal drip as their primary symptom. Exclusions were patients with chronic rhinosinusitis. The interventions offered were temperature-controlled radio frequency (TCRF) ablation of the posterior nasal nerve delivered by the RhinAer®, or cryoablation therapy delivered by the Clarifix device. Primary outcome measures were TNSS and SNOT 22 scores. Patients were also asked if they had any improvement in the symptoms as a yes or no answer. A total of 40 patients were treated and assessed in the study. The results show that 76.5% of patients had a significant improvement in their TNSS scores, and when specifically looking at the post-nasal drip question on the SNOT 22 questionnaire, it improved from 4.2 to 1.9. There were no significant differences in outcomes between the cryoablation group and the TCRF group, although there were only 11 patients in the cryoablation group and 29 in the other. Younger patients tended to get a better result, and patients who smoked seemed to get less benefit. This is an interesting study, and it seems like a good treatment option for a common and difficult problem, although the numbers were fairly small. It is an effective treatment for medically refractive post-nasal drip based on this study, although further studies would be useful.

Posterior nasal nerve ablation as a viable treatment option for the primary symptom of post nasal drip.
Dhanda AK, Gorelik D, Khan N, et al.
AM J RHINOL ALLERGY
2024;38(4):245–50.