AB157. SOH25_AB_104. Epipharyngitis as an epiphany

Background: The ambiguity in describing localised inflammation of the nasopharyngeal mucosa as nasopharyngitis by ENT surgeons but as rhinopharyngitis by non-ENT medical colleagues is without question. It has been suggested that epipharyngitis should be universally adopted by our specialty as a definition of localised inflammation of the postnasal mucosa. This study presents a review of the literature with regard to the term epipharyngitis.

Methods: A literature review of the health databases comprising Embase, Scopus, Web of Science and Google Scholar was performed of the term epipharyngitis. Information collected from the results included the article type, year of publication, country of origin, publishing journal, language of article, and the nature of how the term was used in the paper.

Results: There were 351 mentions on Google Scholar, 54 on Scopus, and 24 on Web of Science. The first report discovered in the PubMed review is 1951, with two spikes in the number of publications during the 1960s and in the past few years, all from Japan. These were duplicated on other search engines while the majority on Google Scholar were in Japanese or described as citations.

Conclusions: Epipharyngitis is a more appropriate term for inflammation of the postnasal mucosa and should be universally adopted as a specific term rather than nasopharyngitis. It should not be limited to a small group of researchers from one country, where the study specifically describes an unusual indicator of systemic disease. It is unlikely that the widespread inappropriate use of Nasopharyngitis can be corrected to rhinopharyngitis.

Keywords: Epipharyngitis; misnomer; nasopharyngitis; postnasal mucosa inflammation; rhinopharyngitis