Volumetric study of the maxillary sinus in patients with sinus pathology

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study is 1) to obtain the area and volumes of the maxillary sinuses in patients affected by clinically unilateral sinus pathology by comparing the results to the contralateral sinus and 2) to determine the importance of the volumetric measures when diagnosing the percentage of sinus obliteration. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A single-centre observational retrospective clinical study was conducted in 214 patients with clinically unilateral sinus pathologies. Linear (mm), area (mm2) and volume (mm3) measurements were taken from Cone Beam Computed Tomography (CBCT) images of the affected sinus as well as from the contralateral ones. Histopathological study was performed using haematoxylin/eosin and PAS or Groccot stains. The lesions were classified into non-specific sinusitis, polyps, inverted papilloma, fungal sinusitis, cysts, mucocele and other lesions. Chi-squared test, ANOVA for independent samples and Pearson test were used for the statistical analysis. RESULTS: A total of 100 sinuses were measured in 50 patients (28 men and 22 women, with an age of 43.6 years (SD = 18.3), 50 pathological and 50 healthy contralateral sinuses. The three-dimensional occupation volume of the affected sinuses was 97.1 mm3 (62.5%) vs. 40.6 mm3 (22.8%) in the healthy ones (p<0.0001). The medial-lateral width of the sinus in the frontal plane was significantly higher in the cysts group (32.4 mm, CI: 23-41.8 mm). CONCLUSION: In medical terms, the global percentage of occupation determined using the classic manual determination method does not differ from the three-dimensional percentage calculated using specific complex software

Overlapping political budget cycles in the legislative and the executive

We advance the literature on political budget cycles by testing separately for cycles in expenditures for elections in the legislative and the executive. Using municipal data, we can separately identify these cycles and account for general year effects. For the executive branch, we show that it is important whether the incumbent re-runs. To account for the potential endogeneity associated with this decision, we apply a unique instrumental variables approach based on age and pension eligibility rules. We find sizable and significant effects in expenditures before council elections and before joint elections when the incumbent re-runs