Quantitative measurement of superantigen levels in nasal polyp patients

Nasal polypossis is a chronic inflammatory disease which is diagnosed with endoscopic and tomographic evaluations. Because of complex nature, and the limited understanding of its etiopathogenesis makes this disease difficult to treat precisely, so that usually recurrence is seen.Chronic inflammation is the most important ethiologic factor in chronic sinusitis with nasal polypossis. Many hypothesis tried to explain how this chronic inflammation starts but studies still can not show the beggining of the nasal polypossis certainly.Nasal polyposis is a multifactorial disease caused by different ethiologic factors. Any ethiolgic factor can not explain the pathogenesis of nasal polypossis by itself. Most of theories accept nasal polypossis is clinical manifestation of chronic inflammation. Therefore any condition causing chronic inflamation leads to nasal polypossis.Superantigens, known causing many diseases, cause up regulation of immun response leading to abnormal immun response and so many diseases. There are many studies that show the relation between nasal polypossis and superantigens. The purpose of this study is measuring the superantigen levels of serum, chonca and nasal polyp and exploring the relationship between this levels with the degree of nasal polypossis and with life quality.Eighteen patients who do not have the history of chronic disease like asthma, allergic, inflammatuar, granulamotosis diseases, do not have surgical teratment for any nasal diseases and do not have systemic or locally teatment at least 8 weeks with nasal polypossis, included in the study. Twenty patients who do not have the history of chronic disease like asthma, allergic, inflammatuar, granulamotosis diseases and do not have surgical teratment for any nasal diseases with chronic sinusitis without nasal polyposis getting surgical treatment for nasal septal deviation, nasal middle choncha bullosa and inferior turbine hypertrophy included the study as the first control group. Fifteen patients who do not have surgical teratment for any nasal diseases and who do not have nasal symptoms and signs and getting operation for any other otolaryngologic disorder were included the study as the second control group.As a results of study; the patients in nasal polypossis group altough not statically different have higher levels of serum superantigen compared to the first control group, and have statically differnt higher levels compared to the second group. High persantage of patients in nasal polypossis group have positive superantigen levels in polyp tissues. There is a statistically not different but middle degree positive correlation between superantigen DNA copy number in polyp tissue and tomographic and endoscopic staging degree. Finally this study shows us that superantigens have an important role in chronic inflammation.