Histological Examination of Nasal Polyps Focused on thePresence of Glandular Structures

Overview

Sinonasal polyps can be divided from the histological aspect into four groups.Oedematous eosinophil polyps, chronic inflammatory polyps, polyps with hyperplasia of the seromucous glands and atypical nasal polyps. The criterion for diagnosis of glandular polyps accordingto Hellquist is a large amount of glands and glandular ducts in oedematous stroma of the polyp andhyperplasia of glandular structures which may be so marked that it resembles a benign glandulartumour. The objective of the present work was to investigate in patients with permanent purulentnasal secretion the presence of seromucous glands in nasal polyps as well as the concurrent presenceof tissue eosinophilia with the presence of glandular structures. The investigated group comprisedten patients with nasal polyps associated with permanent purulent nasal secretion. None of thepatients had a positive case-record of acetylsalicylic acid (ACA) intolerance but eight had a positivenasal provocation test for assessment of ASA intolerance. The control group comprised 20 patientswith nasal polyps who had a permanent purulent nasal secretion and did not suffer from thesyndrome of ASA intolerance. Only in one patient of the investigated group the histological picturecorresponded to the glandular type of nasal polyp, in another six the glandular structures were onlymore numerous. In the investigated group of patients with nasal polyps associated with permanentpurulent nasal secretion the glandular structures with permanent purulent nasal secretion theglandular structures were more frequent in seven of ten patients, in the control group the glandularstructures were present in six cases of twenty. Seromucous glands were thus significantly morefrequent in nasal polyps of patients with permanent purulent nasal secretion. In all 30 patients fromthe control well as the experimental group more frequent glands were found along with tissueeosinophilia in 15 patients. Thus a more frequent combined incidence of both investigated histological characteristics was not found.

Key words:
nasal polyps, pathology, eosinophilia, seromucous glands.