Whats the difference between acute sinusitis and chronic sinusitis?
Dr. Titi: Chronic sinusitis usually lasts for more than six weeks. Patients may also be considered to have chronic sinusitis when they frequently have acute sinusitis that keeps coming back perhaps four to six times a year. Q: n looking at some of the figures I noticed that, in the United States, every year or so sinusitis seems to increase by a couple of million people. Why do you think this is happening? Dr. Titi: That is an interesting question. Whenever a disease increases in prevalence you do have to wonder if the way it is being coded is different. In the past a lot of patients were diagnosed with what was called recurrent bronchitis but now they are frequently told they have asthma when they are seen. The same thing could be occurring with sinusitis. It might have been called an upper respiratory tract infection in the past, but now it’s called sinusitis. It may be that doctors are more sensitive in picking it up, that is one possibility. But, it does seem like the incidences of
