The comfort of patients with different nasal packings after endoscopic sinus surgery for chronic rhinosinusitis: A protocol for network meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Chronic sinusitis (CRS) is a high incidence disease and seriously affects the patients' quality of life, causes tremendous economic burden as well. Endoscopic sinus surgery (ESS) is one of the most common therapies for chronic sinusitis. While whether there is a need for nasal packing and which is the best one is still unclear. METHOD AND ANALYSIS: A systematic search will be performed using PubMed, EMBASE.com, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Chinese Biomedical Literature Database, China National Knowledge Infrastructure and Wanfang database to include randomized controlled trials (RCTs), comparing the efficacy and comfort in patients with nasal packings after ESS who is diagnosed as CRS. The risk of bias of the included RCTs will be assessed by the Cochrane Handbook version 5.1.0. A Bayesian network meta-analysis will be conducted using R-3.3.2 software. RESULTS: This study is ongoing and the results will be published in a peer-reviewed journal. CONCLUSION: The results of this study will be sent to clinicians and healthcare providers in the National Health Service, which is expected to help clinicians make more informed choices on nasal packings. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: Ethical approval is not applicable since this study is a network meta-analysis based on published trials. PROTOCOL REGISTRATION NUMBER: CRD42019119233.