Dr. Amin Javer, MD, FRCSC, FARS, Otolaryngologist Treating Chronic Rhinosinusitis - SNOT transplant Pilot Study

Duration: 2 minutes and 6 seconds

We just published a paper for our first nine patients; a true breakthrough. This was a patient group that we used to obtain enough data to apply for a CIHR grant. We were asked to carry out a pilot study to see if the idea would work in real life. In our initial paper which just got published last week in a very prestigious journal called, IFAR, or the International Forum of Allergy and Rhinology in the US, our trial basically showed that in our first few patients that got just the SNOT transplant actually did better than patients who got other therapies such as antimicrobial photodynamic therapy followed by the transplant, or antimicrobial photodynamic therapy on its own. Antimicrobial photodynamic therapy is another method of sterilizing the sinuses where we shine a blue light of 672 nanometers into the sinuses. It is supposed to kill 99.9% of microbes within the sinus. However, this method was not superior to the transplant by itself.

Our initial thought was that if we sterilize the sinus with the blue light to start with, and then place a healthy microbiome in it, those patients would possibly do the best. But to our surprise, those patients didn't do the best. The patients who did the best out of the entire group of nine patients were the three patients who just got the SNOT transplant and nothing else. This data was submitted to Health Canada and to the granting agency CIHR. The conclusion and final decision was that we should likely do a full and extended study on a group of recalcitrant patients with just the transplant and compare them to a similar group who would get a placebo implant.

Presenter: Dr. Amin Javer, Otolaryngologist, Vancouver, BC

Local Practitioners: Otolaryngologist