Objectives: To develop an anatomically and functionally based approach to endoscopic intranasal ethmoidectomy; to develop such an approach using the salient features of the anterior-to-posterior (AP) and posterior-to-anterior (PA) intranasal sinus operations; to assess the safety of this form of ethmoidectomy in a patient population.
Study design: Retrospective chart review of patients undergoing ethmoidectomy by the authors or by residents under their direct supervision.
Setting: University teaching hospital.
Results: Two thousand three hundred and forty-four patients underwent either unilateral or bilateral ethmoidectomies between April 1992 and August 2005. A complication rate of 0.34% was observed.
Conclusions: Combining an AP approach to conserve sinus anatomy with a PA approach to avoid surgery directed toward the skull base provides a functional and safe procedure, as demonstrated by the reported results.