Surgical outcomes of endoscopic versus open resection for the management of sinonasal malignancies

The purpose of this review is to assess the surgical outcomes of two different treatment modalities, endoscopic and open resection, for the management of sinonasal malignancies by comparing the effectiveness of these two methods. A wide search was carried out considering various electronic databases for English language articles from 2013 to 2018 using keywords such as sinonasal malignancies, endoscopic surgery, open resection for sinonasal malignancies, and endoscopic versus open surgery. One thousand articles were identified from the literature for screening. After a thorough systematic assessment and based on the selection criteria, 10 articles with 4,642 patients were included in this quantitative analysis. With a total of 4,642 patients, 1,730 patients were operated on using endoscopic resection and 2,912 patients were operated on using open resection. The endoscopic approach was found to have a shorter hospital stay compared to open surgical resection (P<0.05). The rate of positive margins and the recurrence rate for open surgical resection were both smaller compared to those for endoscopic resection (P>0.05), and the endoscopic approach had smaller complication rates and a higher survival rate compared to open resection (P>0.05). Though endoscopic resection and open surgical resection have comparable postoperative benefits, preoperative evaluation of cases presenting with sinonasal malignancies is necessary for determining the right treatment method to obtain the best possible results postoperatively.