Does chronic rhinosinusitis relate to systemic hypoxemia?

OBJECTIVES: Determine if chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) is associated with systemic hypoxemia. METHODS: Outpatient otolaryngology visits for 12 months were analyzed, identifying patients with a diagnosis of CRS, without a comorbid diagnosis of pulmonary disease, and an oxygen saturation measurement within 14 days of the otolaryngology visit. Oxygen saturation (SpO(2)) measures (average SpO(2), minimum SpO(2) and proportion abnormal SpO(2)) were compared between CRS patients (with nasal polyps [NP] and without NP) and a control cohort of otology patients, also without pulmonary disease with univariate and multivariate analysis. RESULTS: Among 640 unique CRS patients with 3105 encounters, the mean and minimum SpO(2) measurements were 97.6% (97.5%‐97.7%) and 97.3% (97.2%‐97.5%), respectively. Among 3613 control patients with 25 073 encounters, the mean and minimum SpO(2) measurements were 97.3% (97.3%‐97.4%) and 97.1% (97.1%‐97.2%), respectively. When comparing mean and minimum SpO(2) among CRSsNP (97.5% and 97.2%), CRScNP (97.3% and 97.0%) and control patients (97.3% and 97.1%), no statistically significant differences were found among the 3 groups in mean and minimum SpO(2) adjusting for age and sex (P = .183 and P = .464, respectively, ANOVA). With respect to the presence of an abnormally low oxygen saturation (SpO(2) ≤ 94%), 4.4% of the CRSsNP, 10.9% of the CRScNP and 7.3% of the control patients demonstrated a low oxygen saturation (P = .013). CONCLUSION: CRS alone does not objectively contribute to systemic hypoxemia, although a subset of CRScNP patients may have abnormally low SpO(2), possibly warranting SpO(2) assessment in this group of patients. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: 3.