Online survey to determine realistic success rates and trends in surgical septal perforation repair

Objective High success rates (SR) for surgical septal perforation repair (SPR) of over 90 % are reported in the literature. We think that realistic SR are significantly lower and wanted to confirm this thesis with the help of a survey among ear, nose, throat ENT specialists from Germany. Surgical trends were also queried. Material and Methods An anonymous online survey among ENT specialists in Germany was conducted. 356 doctors participated. The collected SR were statistically evaluated, and the operative trends were analysed. It applies a significance level alpha = 0.05. The SR were collected for 3 different size categories (<1 cm, 1-2 cm, >2 cm). Results The SR for SPR <1 cm (median 79 %) was higher than that for 1-2 cm (60 %) and >2 cm (40 %). Surgeons estimated SR significantly higher (90 %, 75 %, 50 %; p-value <0.001 each) than non-surgeons (80 %, 50 %, 25 %). Hospital-based physicians (90 %, 70 %, 50 %) reported significantly higher SR than ambulatory physicians (80 %, 50 %, 30 %, p-value <0.001 each). No linear relationship was found between the total number of SPR performed and SR (r <1cm = 0.16, r1-2cm = 0.18, r >2cm = 0.19). Most SPR were performed with the bridge flap technique (73 %), a closed surgical approach (85 %), an interposition graft (74 %) and postoperative splinting (94 %). Conclusions The subjective SR suggest that the SR of SPR is lower than described in the literature. This may be due to short follow-up times, small patient populations and a retrospective design of existing studies. The variety of surgical possibilities confirms the complexity of SPR. Optimising the design of future studies could help to collect realistic SR.