INTRODUCTION: Chronic secondary nasal obstruction, the hypertrophy of the inferior turbinates is a common symptom of great morbidity in our society. Several surgical techniques are described to cases refractory to medical treatments, however, there are controversy about which one of them is more effective and less subject to complications. OBJECTIVE: Evaluate the efficacy, security and practicability of using ambulatory trichloroacetic acid to treat the hypertrophy of the inferior turbinates. METHOD: Prospective study with 29 patients submitted to the ambulatory technique of 30% trichloroacetic acid infiltration in the inferior turbinate's submucosa, under topic anesthesia. The symptoms of rhinorrhea and nasal obstruction were evaluated using the analogical and visual scale (AVS 010) pre-cautery and one year post-procedure. RESULTS: Significant nasal obstruction and rhinorrhea reduction one year post-procedure. The complications were light synechia in two patients and small bleedings in four spontaneous resolution cases. CONCLUSION: The proposed method showed excellent results concerning nasal obstruction and rhinorrhea, can be conducted in ambulatory environment, and has proved to be a low-complication method.
cautery; nasal obstruction; trichloroacetic acid