Purpose: To observe the effect of intraoperative mitomycin C on the size of the osteotomy site after dacryocystorhinostomy.:
Methods: A total of 15 eyes of 14 patients diagnosed with primary acquired nasolacrimal duct obstruction were assigned randomly to either a mitomycin C group or a control group. The surgical procedures in both groups were exactly the same, except that in the patients in the mitomycin C group, a piece of neurosurgical cottonoid soaked with 0.2 mg/ml mitomycin C was applied to the osteotomy site and then after 30 minutes was removed transnasally. Nasoendoscopic findings were recorded at the completion of the surgery and at 1 month, 3 months, and 6 months after surgery for the two groups. A computer-aided digitizer was used to calculate the surface area of the osteotomy site, and a Student's t test was used to compare the difference between the two groups.
Results: All patients in the mitomycin C group remained symptom free after removal of their silicone tube (100% success), and there was one patient in the control group who had recurrent epiphora (87.5% success). Septo-osteotomy adhesion was found in two patients in the control group (25%), but there was no such adhesion found in the patients in the mitomycin C group. In the mitomycin C group, the average final surface area of the osteotomy at the end of the sixth postoperative month was 27.10 +/- 5.78 mm2, whereas that of the control group was only 10.83 +/- 3.37 mm2. Although the immediate postoperative surface area of the osteotomy showed no significant difference between the two groups, a statistically significant difference was noted at 6 months.
Conclusion: Intraoperative mitomycin C is effective in maintaining a larger osteotomy size. This modification may possibly improve success rates over the traditional dacryocystorhinostomy procedure.