There is an anceint saying "A room of many doors will be windy, a person of many works (talkative) will bring disaster". Can this saying be applicable to special cases of maxillary sinus with accessary ostia? Tppically a sinus only has one opening, known as ostium. The air, mucus, can only enter and discharge via this single opening. However, for some, the sinus may have multiple openings, known as accessory ostium. In the work below, we use computaitonal fluid dynamics to examine the effect. However, more works will need to be done to investigate the other sides, for example, whether the sinus will be easily infected, as viruses can also enter more easily, whether the mucocilliary fuction wil be affect as the mucus flow will be different.
For those who are interested in this topic, you can look at the following paper.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1569904812001772…
Effect of accessory ostia on maxillary sinus ventilation: A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) study
Abstract
We evaluated, by CFD simulation, effects of accessory ostium (AO) on maxillary sinus ventilation. A three-dimensional nasal model was constructed from an adult CT scan with two left maxillary AOs (sinus I) and one right AO (sinus II), then compared to an identical control model with all AOs sealed (sinuses III and IV). Transient simulations of quiet inspiration and expiration at 15 L/min, and nasal blow at 48 L/min, were calculated for both models using low-Reynolds-number turbulent analysis. At low flows, ventilation rates in sinuses with AOs (I ≈ 0.46 L/min, II ≈ 0.54 L/min), were both more than a magnitude higher than sinuses without AOs (III ≈ 0.019 L/min, IV ≈ 0.020 L/min). Absence of AO almost completely prevented sinus ventilation. Increased ventilation of sinuses with AOs is complex. Under high flow conditions mimicking nose blowing, in sinuses II, III, and IV, the sinus flow rate increased. In contrast, the airflow direction through sinus I reversed between inspiration and expiration, while it remained almost constant throughout the respiration cycle in sinus II. CFD simulation demonstrated that AOs markedly increase maxillary sinus airflow rates and alter sinus air circulation patterns. Whether these airflow changes impact maxillary sinus physiology or pathophysiology is unknown.