Eye Diseases Associated with Otorhinolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery

Abstract

In essence, the five sense organs, the ears, nose, throat, mouth, and eyes, are one, perhaps because they are located in the head and neck and are connected to each other and also because diseases that occur in these regions often influence each other or even are associated with each other. Collectively, the study of the diseases of these five organs is termed ENT or facial features department. At present, in many regions, otorhinolaryngology is still used in the disciplinary system. Of course, with the rapid development of modern medicine, traditional otorhinolaryngology has differentiated and developed into independent subjects, i.e., ophthalmology, otorhinolaryngology head and neck surgery, and stomatology. Each subject is further divided and develops into third- or even fourth-level disciplines, which reflects the characteristics of the development of modern medical technologies; that is, more specialties are created. However, a group of clinical diseases is closely associated with the eyes (orbit) in their pathogenesis, progression, treatment, and prognosis. Under the current situation of the cumbersome division of the specialties, we found that the treatment of these diseases by a single subdivision of a discipline not only fails to realize effective treatment but can also cause misdiagnosis and mistreatment. Therefore, in looking for new collaborations to jointly explore treatment strategies, a new interdisciplinary subject, i.e., nose-eye-related surgery, is born. In fact, nose-eye-related surgery is a multidisciplinary involvement concept, including ophthalmology; oral and maxillofacial surgery, imaging, neurosurgery, neurology, pathology, and otorhinolaryngology head and neck surgery. In fact, nose-eye-related surgery has integrated the multidisciplinary treatment means and research methods of the head and neck fields so that the diagnosis and treatment of such type of diseases turn into a unique pattern. In 1994, People’s Medical Publishing House published the “Surgical relationships between the nose and the eye,” written and edited by the Chinese science predecessor, professor Guoxuan Bu. Just as the academician Jiang Si-long wrote in the preface, the book “Comprehensively and systematically summarizes the relationship between rhinology and ophthalmology and fully describes the diagnosis and treatment of various nasal diseases.” At that time, there was no such monograph either at home or abroad. The publication of this monograph undoubtedly has promoted the development of rhinology in China and has been widely welcomed by specialists (Bu, Surgical relationships between the nose and the eye, People’s Medical Publishing House, Beijing, 1995). Nose-eye-related surgery is a typical representative of integrated medicine, and the development of such a discipline increases the field’s attention to ear-, nose-, and throat-related eye diseases and promotes the research of relevant fields and the further integration of discipline advantages.