The health of the nose is often underestimated. Many people, even in the presence of major disorders, tend to minimize hygiene or resort to generic remedies. Dr. Luca Malvezzi, Specialist in Otorhinolaryngology and Facial Cervical Surgery in Humanitas and guest at Cuore e Denari on Radio 24, stressed how important it is to take care of one’s nose and how the treatment of the pathologies that concern it is becoming increasingly personalized.

“Many people with rhinitis (allergic rhinitis being one of many forms), for example, often do not realize they have a problem because they have been suffering from rhinitis for many years and are now so used to it that they do not know what it means to breathe normally. This lack of awareness of the problem, however, may evolve over time, affecting not only the nose and sinuses, but also the lower airways. Thus the disorder clinically reaches the lungs.

 

Wash the nose

“The nose should be managed daily, regardless of whether you suffer from any disturbance. In large cities, for example, there is some pollution and the dirt that enters the nose triggers an inflammatory reaction. That is why we should all, at any age, wash our noses, morning and evening.

The simplest, most practical and economical way is to clean with physiological solution in a syringe without needle. It is better to avoid homemade preparation of the solution: if you use too much salt for example, you risk making the solution too hypertonic and therefore dehydrating the nasal mucosa. Tap water, on the other hand, is a bit irritating because it has a PH that is different from the physiological one, contains different salts and can therefore be irritating,” explains Dr. Malvezzi.

 

Medicine 4P

“Today, nose diseases must be treated in a different way, the patient must be studied by a multidisciplinary board, the otorhinolaryngologist cannot manage the upper and lower airways alone, but must collaborate with an immunologist, an allergist and a pulmonologist. The pathology must be phenotyped, i.e. the particular type of pathology must be recognized in order to guarantee specific treatment for the patient. In the future, we will increasingly talk about 4P medicine, that is, personalized, predictive, preventive and participatory medicine, with the aim of guaranteeing an increasingly precise therapeutic, pharmacological or surgical treatment”.