Functional Endoscopic Sinus Surgery (FESS).

Functional Endoscopic sinus surgery (FESS) is a minimally invasive surgical procedure that opens up the sinus air cells and the sinus ostia with an endoscope. The use of FESS as a sinus surgical method has now become widely accepted and the term functional is meant to distinguish this type of endoscopic surgery from the nonendoscopic more conventional sinus procedure. Functional Endoscopic sninus surgery is being done regularly at TU Teaching Hospital from 2003. Total number of cases done from March 2003 till December 2005 were 94. Maximum number of FESS was done for nasal polyps, which was carried out in 80 patients, out of which, FESS for ethmoidal polyp was done in 47 patients and for antrochoanal polyps in 33 patients. Other conditions where FESS was carried out were chronic maxillary sinusitis in 8 patients, fungal sinusitis in 5 patients, and endoscopic medial maxillectomy for inverted papilloma in 1 patient.

Lipoblastoma in head and neck--a rare childhood tumour.

Lipoblastoma is an uncommon benign mesenchymal tumour that occurs primarily in children younger than 3 yrs of age. Despite the lesions being benign, great difficulty can be encountered in its management because of its tendency to invade the different fascial planes. A rare case of huge lipoblastoma diagnosed in a 22 months old child, involving various spaces of face and skull base has been reported. This huge tumour was completely and successfully removed through cheek incision without any postoperative complications.

Injection drug use and tricuspid valve endocarditis.

Tricuspid valve endocarditis is more common in injection drug users. Pulmonary valve and Eustachian valve endocarditis have been reported but are very rare. Earlier reports of endocarditis in injection drug users emphasized the dominance of right sided involvement. In a series of 105 patients 86 % were right sided and 14 % had left sided involvement. We report a case of isolated tricuspid valve endocarditis in an injection drug user affecting a structurally normal heart and review of the literature on this subject. Key Words: injection drug use, tricuspid valve endocarditis.