Figure legends
Figure 1 Surgical approach (Supplement with Video)
A: A mucosal incision was made from the upper nasal septum to the nasal floor along the red line. The left nasal septal mucosa was shifted to the left limen nasi. At this time, the greater palatine artery passing through the canalis incisivus was not dissected (white allow). Septoplasty was performed with the vomer and perpendicular plate of the ethmoid removed, it provided an approach route from the left nasal cavity through the nasal septum to the sphenoid sinus.
B: A Y-shaped nasal septal mucosal incision (white dotted line) was made from the nasal floor along the posterior edge of the nasal septum and upper walls of the right and left choana. The left and right nasal septal mucous membranes were laterally deviated, and the anterior walls of the sphenoid sinus were excised until the optic nerve canal and carotid artery prominences on both sides were in the same field of view.
C: The horizontal incision was made in the right nasal septal mucosa up to the anterior end of the middle turbinate.
D: The silicone plate was sewn into the bilateral nostrils and it acted as a spacer to ensure a good working space.
Figure 2 The jet stream olfactometer (JSO; Nagashima Medical Instruments, Tokyo, Japan)
Figure 3 Results of the jet stream olfactometer test for the study subjects (n= 27).
The X-axis represents the evaluation of the jet stream olfactometer (JSO) in the left and right and bilateral nasal passages. The Y-axis represents the average recognitive threshold of the JSO.
Pre-op: Preoperative olfactory function testing.
Post-op: Postoperative olfactory function testing.
a: data are presented as medians (IQRs; interquartile ranges).
*: Statistically significant difference (Wilcoxon signed-rank test).