Endoscopic sinus surgery for rhinocerebral mucormycosis

Rhinocerebral mucormycosis is a fulminant, often floral, disease. Aggressiv e surgical debridement has been considered nrl important part Of treatment. Traditionally, an external or transantral approach has been the classic me thod Recently: endoscopic sinus surgery (ESS) ha been tried on several occa sions to reach thf goal of radical resection. Since 1991, ESS has been used to ri-eat 9 rhinocerebral mucormycosis patients in our department. Among t hem, ESS was the only surgical procedure in six patients. Tilt other three patients were treated by ESS combined with a transantral procedure. As a re sult, Eight patients (88.9%) have survived the disease. One patient died 5 days after ESS because of an internal carotid artery occlusion. We conclude that ESS car? be used to treat rhinocerebral mucormycosis alone or in comb ination with the traditional surgical procedures. Ir has the advantage of l ess operative morbidity and greater operative accuracy.