Efficacy of biodegradable synthetic polyurethane foam for packing nasal bone fractures.

BACKGROUND: Nasal bone fracture is the most common traumatic disease among facial bone fractures. General treatment of this trauma is closed reduction, followed by intranasal packing. Vaseline or Furacin roll gauze, and Merocel are commonly used packing materials, but the pain produced while removing the packing is fearful for the patients. To compensate for this shortcoming, there has been an increased use of biodegradable synthetic polyurethane foam (SPF) recently. We performed a retrospective review to analyze the effectiveness of SPF after the closed reduction of nasal bone fracture.

PATIENTS AND METHODS: A retrospective review was conducted in 109 patients who underwent closed reduction for pure nasal bone fracture. One group was packed with Furacin roll gauze and the other was packed with SPF. Postoperative pain, hemostatic effect, supporting ability on the fractured segment, and healing of the injured nasal mucosa were compared between the 2 groups.

RESULTS: A total of 109 patients were reviewed, with 61 patients packed with Furacin roll gauze (group A) and 48 patients packed with SPF (group B). Between the 2 groups, only visual analogue scale of pain at postoperative fourth day was statistically low in group B (P = 0.045) with other parameters showing no statistical difference.

DISCUSSION: Nasal packing after closed reduction of nasal bone fractures support the reduced fractured bony segment and also has the main role on hemostasis and healing of mucosal injury. Removal of the packing is painful and fearful to the patients. SPF as nasal packing material provides superior outcome in terms of pain and satisfaction and, at the same time, is not inferior to the conventional packing materials with regard to bleeding control, mucosal wound healing, toxicity, and stability of reduced fracture segment.