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.