Simulation of Nasal Air Flow from High Resolution MRI Images of Patients with Empty Nose Syndrome

Arthur Wunderlich¹, Marc Scheithauer², Fabian Sommer², Wolfgang Freund¹

To study the nasal air flow with finite volume methods, we investigated ten patients with high-resolution MRI during breathing of a) room air, b) menthol and c) after inhalation of the decongestant xylometazoline. Nose cavities were segmented from MRI data and flow was simulated with mathematical methods. Results were compared to those of a healthy control. Simulations show the flow distribution in the nasal cavities and its dependence on medication. In patients, flow is divided nearly equal between both nasal cavities, in contradiction to the physiological flow pattern observed in controls where one nose cavity manages most of the flow.