الفهرس 
INTRODUCTIONOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
For many years, external DCR was the gold standard procedure for the management of patients suffering from epiphora caused by primary acquired nasolacrimal duct obstruction. Recently with the advances in the field of nasal endoscopy, the endonasal endoscopic DCR took its place as a good alternative to the classical external technique.
Powered endoscopic DCR is a modified technique of endoscopic DCR that was developed by PJ Wormald, who tried to mimic the external DCR in two important aspects. The first aspect was to expose the entire lacrimal sac during endoscopic dissection reaching the fundus of the lacrimal sac. The second aspest was that he used the technique of fashioning lacrimal and nasal mucosal flaps and approximated them allowing first intention healing rather than second intention healing by granulation tissues.
In the present study we aimed to compare the outcome of powered endoscopic DCR to that of the external DCR in patients suffering from primary acquired nasolacrimal duct obstruction. This study was conducted on twenty randomly selected patients presenting with chronic epiphora due to primary acquired nasolacrimal duct obstruction. The patients were randomly allocated in two groups, ten patients in each group:
Group I: first ten patients underwent external DCR.
Group II: second ten patients underwent endoscopic DCR.
The patients were followed up for three months postoperatively. The success of the procedures was defined both subjectively by relief of symptoms at the end of the follow up period and objectively by endoscopic visualization of the ostium and passage of fluorescein (initially placed on the conjunctiva) through the ostium.
In this study, we found that the success was achieved in 9 cases (90%) of the endoscopic group and similarly in the external group. Also we found that the occurrence of postoperative complications in both groups was rare and statistically insignificant.
Finally, we concluded that the success rate of powered endoscopic DCR with full sac exposure and primary mucosal apposition compares favorably with that of standard external DCR.