Purpose: Evaluation of the clinical value of imaging techniques for chronic inflammatory disease of paranasal sinuses.
Materials and methods: Beside clinical tests imaging of the paranasal sinuses is based on the techniques like conventional X-ray studies, ultrasound, computed tomography and magnetic resonance techniques.
Results: The value of conventional X-ray is lowered and is today focused on the diagnosis of acute sinusitis with fluid level and the detection of inflammatory foci. Spiral-CT using transverse and coronal orientation or reformatted images is considered as the diagnostic method of choice for the majority of clinical questions. MRT allows additional diagnostic informations in completely obstructed maxillary sinuses and patients with suspected anterior skull base involvement.
Conclusion: Imaging techniques do provide substantial diagnostic informations in patients with chronic sinusitis.