Comprehensive access strategies to the frontal sinus

Purpose of review: Despite the impressive evolutions in endoscopic endonasal approaches and instrumentations, the frontal sinus remains a challenging area. Different surgical options have been described over the years, but the main criticism lies in choosing the most suitable approach for a given case, based on the anatomy of each patient and the disease to treat. The purpose of this study is to provide a comprehensive review of surgical access strategies currently available to address the frontal sinus, including both endonasal and traditional external procedures, analysing indications, contraindications, complications and outcomes. Recent findings: Frontal sinus surgery includes minimally invasive endonasal approaches (balloon dilatation, Draf type I); extended endonasal approaches (Draf type IIA-IIB-IIC, Draf type III and their modifications via orbital transposition and contralateral pyriform aperture resection); external procedures (superior eyelid incision, frontal osteoplastic flap, Riedel procedure, Riedel-Mosher operation); and combined approaches. Summary: Recent advances in endoscopic endonasal techniques have deeply reshaped the surgical options to manage frontal sinus diseases, in an attempt to minimize the invasiveness of the procedures and maximize their outcomes. Traditional external procedures should be used in selected cases nonamenable for endonasal surgery. The appropriate selection of cases appears to be of paramount importance to obtain successful outcomes.