[A clinical treatise upon the nasal septal perforation].

Thirty nine cases of septal perforation of various origins were presented using clinical such as backgrounds age, gender, possible causes, and size of septal perforation evaluated by diameter. The cases included 26 males and 13 females with a mean age of 35 years range: 8 to 85 years. Possible causative factors were as follows: septal surgeries (9), other nasal and paranasal surgeries (17), nasal cautery or tamponade (2), occupational (2), collagen disease (2), inflammatory (1) and idiopathic (5). Signs and symptoms related to perforations were minor, such as stuffy nose (3), running nose (3), nosebleed (5), dry sensation (4), nasal pain (1), and asymptomatic (23). Sizes of perforations by largest diameter were small (less than 10 mm) in 7, moderate (11-20 mm) in 13, and large (more than 21 mm) in 6. The size of perforations tended to be variable, but two cases with collagen disease showed large perforations 35 mm. Although iatrogenic and idiopathic cases comprised the majority of cases (80%), such a few cases of grave significases as collagen and hematological diseases showed unusually large perforations.