Patients
Our surgical teams started performing transseptal approach since
January, 2019 for all patients with pituitary tumor, except for those
with (1) history of previous sphenoid surgery, transnasal TSA or
septoplasty. (2) Pathology other than pituitary adenoma suspected on
imaging. We reviewed all patients receiving transseptal approach from
January 2019 to December 2020 and excluded the patients with following
criteria: (1) histopathology other than pituitary adenoma; (2)
concurrent sinonasal disease; (3) positive result of polymerase chain
reaction (PCR) test for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2
(SARS-CoV-2) at any time of observation (4) harvest of a nasoseptal
flap.
Of 35 consecutive adult patients (≥ 20 years old) receiving transseptal
approach, 10 (29%) patients were excluded for the following reasons: 7
(20%) had different pathology other than pituitary adenoma, at 2 (6%)
had chronic sinusitis simultaneously, 1 (3%) had positive PCR test
result for SARS-CoV-2. A total of 25 patients were included for analysis
(transseptal group). Another 25 consecutive patients receiving
endoscopic endonasal transnasal TSA from January 2017 to December 2018
fulfilling the same inclusion/exclusion criteria were selected as
control (transnasal group).
This study was approved by the institutional review board of our
hospital (IRB: 202011002RINA) and followed the Strengthening the
Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology guideline.