AB182. SOH24AB_057. Nasopharyngitis: a tale of three titles

Background: Generally, the diagnosis of nasopharyngitis to an otorhinolaryngology-head and neck surgery (ORL-HNS) specialist defines inflammation of the postnasal mucosa, although some colleagues prefer; epipharyngitis. Nasopharyngitis is a common complication reported in multiple studies involving biologic treatments from worldwide authors representing numerous medical specialties. Seemingly, this descriptive term is a misnomer defining a combination of rhinitis and pharyngitis while none of these patients appear to have had their nasopharynx visualised. This study aims to assess what is implied by nasopharyngitis after interrogating the results on Medline.

Methods: A Medline search for nasopharyngitis and epipharyngitis was performed. Each result was assessed for the year of publication, source journal, defined clinical condition and reporting specialty.

Results: There were 1,643 publications reporting nasopharyngitis between 1905 and 2023. Epipharyngitis resulted in 45 articles dating from 1950, and 25,278 papers reported rhinopharyngitis. The first mention of nasopharyngitis instead of rhinopharyngitis was in 1986, and has been in 88% of the publications since. The majority of articles describing nasopharyngitis (80.06%) were published since 2003 but most should be reported as rhinopharyngitis.

Conclusions: It is acknowledged that in healthcare a lack of precision is dangerous when the margin of error is small. While patient risk is minimal in many instances of misnomers, it is incumbent to address any potential anomaly. The answers lie in a consensus statement from those working in that area of concurrence where the nose meets the pharynx involving national and regional specialty and subspecialty societies, with the assistance of our discipline’s journal editors.

Keywords: Epipharyngitis; nasopharyngitis; Medline; publication; rhinopharyngitis