Chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyps in the elderly: Assessing current evidence.

BACKGROUND

The recently reported prevalence of chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) among people >60 years old was 4.7%, with CRS emerging as the sixth most common chronic condition in the elderly. There is still a dearth of studies that focused on older patients, however, regarding the characteristics of CRS with nasal polyps (CRSwNP).

OBJECTIVE

The emerging role of CRSwNP endotyping to enable a tailored medical approach (for elderly patients also) was investigated.

METHOD: The present review of data reported predominantly in the past 5 years aimed to critically discuss the pathophysiologic, clinical, and prognostic features of CRSwNP in elderly patients.

RESULTS

Although the existing data were not final, they supported the notion that geriatric patients can be managed safely by adopting the same surgical algorithm as for younger adults, including endoscopic sinus surgery (ESS). As for medical therapies, prolonged systemic steroid treatment for CRSwNP should be given with caution to elderly patients because they risk significant adverse effects. There is increasing evidence of a lower CRSwNP recurrence rate after ESS in the elderly than in young adult patients. Contrary to findings in younger patients, recently, analysis of preliminary data showed that histologically eosinophilic CRSwNP or high blood eosinophil counts were not significantly associated with a higher recurrence rate in elderly patients.

CONCLUSION

A great challenge in the field of geriatric CRSwNP is to investigate the different endotypes in large series (also by means of biomarker assay in blood and polyp tissue) to identify rational and tailored diagnostic, therapeutic (medical and/or surgical), and follow-up modalities.