Introduction: Nasal polyps (NP) are still a serious therapeutic problem to physicians and a health problem to patients. In their biology eosinophils play an important role. They are predominant in over 80% of NP. In the past years therapeutic methods used in NP treatment move from surgery to farmacotherapy with predominant local corticosteroids (CS). The new CS preparations, applied nasally, are both stronger action in anti-infalmmatory action and have lower bioavailability, what improves effectiveness at the same time reducing unwanted systemic side-effects. We set up this study to determine in which groups of patients with NP CS pharmacotherapy can be most effective, as well as to estimate what effect on NP recurrence does CS-therapy after surgery exert.

Material and methods: 92 patients suffering from nasal and nasal-sinuses polyps qualified for operational treatment (functional endoscopic surgery in one or two phases) entered this study. Before surgery, all patients underwent laryngological examination including endoscopic evaluation of the NP, CT of the sinuses, exfoliative cytology of the nasal mucosa as well as an allergological examination with skin prick tests and spirometry. They also filled in the patient’s part of the study card and gave their informed consent to participate in the study. A cytological diagnostics was made by comparing the results of the study group with the cytograms of the 34 people control group.

Results: 71 patients underwent pre-operative CS treatment. In cytology of CS-treated patients we observed a decreased percentage o eosinophils when compared with not-treated (p=0,013). In both subgroups with or without aspirin induced asthma (ASA+) and (ASA-) this percentages fell significantly: 49% treated vs 58% not-treated (p=0,048) and 29% treated vs 45% not-treated (p=0,036%), respectively. The recurrence of NP was 23% in CS-treated vs 95% in not-treated (p<0,001).

Conclusions: The study proved a substantial effect of nasal CS treatment on eosinophils reduction in NP cytograms in patients ASA+ and ASA-. CS also decrease the recurrence rate of NP including the need for reoperation.