Are There Additional Nasal Sinuses? Do They Matter?

Abstract

Krmpotić stated that the perpendicular plate of the ethmoidal bone as a great part of the nasal septal skeleton may be pneumatized, thus forming a cavity within this bony plate. This cavity was called sinus septi nasi (SSN). Unfortunately, everything stopped at this level: no data on sinus septi nasi and its possible diseases have been offered in the literature for decades, most probably since for a long time there was no possibility of CT scanning of the paranasal sinuses. At the same time, classic sinus X-rays of Waters’ projection, as well as so-called tomographs, were the golden standard in the radiological diagnosis of the paranasal sinuses, but they technically could not offer precise images of the structures of the nose and sinuses at all. The problem is worse since even nowadays, after decades of the use of CT scanning techniques, the radiologists generally never mention this anatomical detail in their findings; they simply skip this since they haven’t ever been, during their education, introduced to the concept of the existence of some space, empty or filled, within the nasal septal skeleton. The fact is that the diagnoses like “mucocoelae” or “mucopyocoelae” of the “sinus septi nasi” or “sinusitis sinus septi nasi” are extremely rare and sound a bit weird. This is why such diagnoses practically do not exist in everyday clinical practice as well as in the rhinologic literature.