Treatment includes antibiotics, surgical closure using flaps, muscle, or fascial plugs. Posterior inferior bleeding is often from sphenopalatine vessels, and superior bleeding is often from anterior and posterior ethmoid vessels. A familial tendency. Airway obstruction improves with crying. Unilateral atresia causes persistent nasal drainage and excoriation of the nasal vestibule.
Diagnosis is made by passing a flexible catheter through the anterior nares.
The catheter should pass more than 32 mm. Atresia may be confirmed by CT scan. Treated initially with a McGovern's nipple followed by surgical correction. This is an extracranial herniation of the meninges and brain through a cranial defect, histologically identical to a nasal glioma. There is a high incidence of other CNS anomalies.