Longitudinal Response to Epipharyngeal Abrasive Therapy (EAT) in Chronic Nasopharyngitis With Outcome Redefinition and Stratified Analysis by Tissue Type and Baseline Severity

Objective This study aimed to evaluate longitudinal changes in nasopharyngeal findings in patients undergoing epipharyngeal abrasive therapy (EAT) and to examine differences in treatment responsiveness according to macroscopic tissue type and baseline severity. In addition, outcome definitions were reconstructed using reproducible criteria based on EAT and bleeding scores, and factors associated with complete resolution were investigated. Methods A total of 546 patients undergoing EAT with nasopharyngeal evaluations from baseline up to 12 months were retrospectively analyzed. Inflammation and bleeding were quantified using EAT and bleeding scores. Longitudinal trends (0-12 months) were assessed using mixed-effects models with Restricted Maximum Likelihood (REML) and Holm correction for multiple comparisons. Primary analyses focused on patients with complete data at 0-3 months (n=238), stratified by macroscopic tissue type (proliferative/hypertrophic vs edematous) and baseline severity (EAT score ≥20 vs