Materials and methods
Our research had been reviewed by the ethics committee of our hospital before initiating this retrospective study; the present work was produced in conjunction with the STROBE guidelines for reporting on cohort studies.The medical record information management system was used to record ‘sinusitis’ as the keyword to search for discharge diagnosis. All patients treated at our center were collected between January 2015 and December 2020. Read the patient’s discharge records and operation records. When the case was diagnosed as FBS, AFRS or with allergic mucin described in the operation records, we re-read the data of radiographic imaging, laboratory, and pathological section, and re-diagnose according to Bent-Kuhn diagnostic criteria2. All cases were divided into three groups: A for AFRS: The patients were diagnosed according to Bent-Kuhn diagnostic criteria. B for suspect AFRS: The characteristics of clinical, radiology and allergic mucin were in accordance with the Bent-Kuhn criteria, and fungal specific IgE was positive, but no fungal evidence. C for FBS: Fungus ball infection clinical manifestation, typical radiology, the description of fungus lump in surgical records, and the fungal examination in histopathological sections were positive.
The data of three groups were collected, including gender, age, number of recurrences, side and number of sinus, bone erosion, the peripheral blood eosinophils and basophils percentage, galactomannan test, serum total IgE, pathological findings of fungi, and whether conbain with allergic rhinitis, asthma, or olfactory hypothyroidism. The difference in the above items between group A and group B, group A and group C, and group B and group C were compared.