What does mild polypoid mucosal disease in the floor of maxillary sinus mean?
Patient: Hi I started loosing tasting food I taste only spicy food and mild garlic tastes..my doctor asked to do MRI for brain and it resulted like that ... There is mild polypoid mucosal disease involving the floor of the maxillary sinuses.. What does it mean.. Am so panic please help..thanks Drss... Doctor: Hi, first off DONT PANIC.Let me see if I can give you some basic information that will put you at ease and help you develop you game plan on how to deal with it.Your nose is a pretty amazing organ. It's not only responsible for the obvious stuff like breathing and smell. It also is very important in filtering out the nasty dust particles and infections that are in the air. It also protects the lungs by moistening and warming the air that you breath in.The maxillary sinuses are naturally occurring air spaces that help warm and moisten the air as you breath and they help your voice carry by resonating when you speak. The thing is... those sinuses are lined with layers of what we call 'MUCOSAL TISSUE'. This mucosal tissue is there basically to keep the sinus clean and make sure no gunk builds up inside of it. What the report seems to indicate is that some of the mucosal tissue in the sinuses has started overgrowing a bit and forming into tiny bumps called polyps. Those polyps normally form when you have allergies or when you have alot of sinus infections. When those polyps grow into the nose , they can mess with your sense of smell.Most of the time the polyps can be dealt with by dealing with the underlying cause (if you've got allergies, treat those, if it's infections, antibiotics, etc). Occasionally you need surgery on the polyps that can remove them. The surgery is done on the inside of the nose using endoscopes and is called a Functional Endoscopic Sinus Surgery (FESS). But that's rare.Overall, I think your best plan here is to take this report back to the ENT and see if they can prescribe you a set of medications that will hopefully make the polyps shrink a bit, or at least stop growing. If that doesn't work, the surgery might be whats needed. I hope this helps. You can get in touch with one of our ENT's through our "Ask a Specialist" service. we will get back to you right away.Thanks for coming to HealthCareMagicVin