UC Irvine

BACKGROUND: Chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) is traditionally classified into CRS with or without nasal polyps and, more recently, into eosinophilic and noneosinophilic endotypes. Limited research exists on the relationship between CRS subtypes and mucociliary function. This study compares ciliary beat frequency (CBF) across CRS subtypes. OBJECTIVE: To investigate CBF across different CRS subtypes and validate spectrally encoded interferometric microscopy (SEIM) against phase-contrast microscopy (PCM) for measuring CBF. METHODS: Sinonasal mucosa from endoscopic endonasal surgery cases were imaged ex vivo at physiological temperatures using PCM and SEIM. CBF measurements were compared between disease states (control vs CRS with nasal polyps [CRSwNPs] vs CRS without nasal polyps [CRSsNPs] and control vs eosinophilic CRS vs noneosinophilic CRS) and between PCM and SEIM. RESULTS: CRSwNP mucosa (5.77 ± 0.12 Hz) had significantly lower CBF compared with control (6.23 ± 0.11 Hz) (P = .001). Both eosinophilic rhinosinusitis (5.74 ± 0.16 Hz; P = .005) and noneosinophilic CRS mucosa (6.00 ± 0.08 Hz; P = .03) had significantly lower CBF compared with control (6.28 ± 0.11 Hz). There was no significant difference between PCM (7.65 ± 0.60 Hz) and SEIM (7.64 ± 0.51 Hz) as a means of evaluating CBF (P = .36). CONCLUSION: Among the CRS subtypes, eosinophilic, noneosinophilic, and CRSwNP are associated with lower CBF compared with healthy controls. SEIM may have value in measuring CBF.