People who think they have empty nose syndrome say it was a variety of complaints that prompted them to see a doctor. A few had structural problems in the nose, such as a deviated septum. Some had nasal growths, or polyps, that required removal. Now, Tom Brown, a New York businessman, says he feels like he has a permanent case of the flu. When doctors from around the world gathered in Washington, D.C., last fall at Nose 2000, the quadrennial meeting of the International Rhinologic Society, they held two separate debates on whether the syndrome exists.
Turbinates sit in three pairs in the nasal cavity.
Cilia and mucus on the turbinates act as a defense against foreign agents, trapping airborne particles and other unwanted matter. Some doctors say turbinates also help with the act of breathing. One day in the summer of 1994, Dr. Eugene Kern of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., was showing X-rays of these turbinate surgery patients to a visiting Swedish surgeon, Monica Stenquist. At the same time, every one of the 157 patients had undergone surgery in which turbinates were pared back or removed. Kern and Moore have written a paper on the study, but it has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal.