How much does FESS improve the sense of smell?
Reviewed by Joanna Stephens

We are all familiar with patients who undergo a seemingly successful FESS but, in spite of this, have persistent smell dysfunction postoperatively. This study compares a surgical group with a control group, measuring olfactory function pre and postoperatively using Sniffin Sticks. In the surgical group, the number of patients with anosmia postoperatively improved from 34% to 18% and the number of patents with normosmia improved from 23% to 39%. Patients who underwent a septoplasty at the same time as their FESS had better outcomes in terms of smell, and the patients with CRSwNP had worse outcomes. Overall, while a lot of patients had some improvement in their olfactory function, only 50% had a return comparative to that of normal controls. This is useful to allow us to counsel our patients preoperatively as to what expectations they can have regarding their smell function postoperatively.

Olfactory Function after Surgical Treatment of CRS: A Comparison of CRS patients to Healthy Controls.
Mattos J et al.
AM J RHINOL ALLERGY
2021;35(3):391-8.