Fang S, et al. - Researchers evaluated nasal septal retainer for its safety and clinical efficacy in septoplasty. In addition, they compared the subjective symptoms of patients with the retainer vs Merocel nasal packing. In this prospective, randomized, controlled study, they randomized 39 patients to receive Merocel (n = 17) or the retainer (n = 22) after septoplasty. During the packing/retaining period, they noted significantly lower mean scores of headache, nasal obstruction, epiphora, and facial pressure in the retainer group than in the Merocel group; the retainer group had lower mean scores of nasal pain, nasal itching, rhinorrhea, dysphagia, and sleep disturbance than the Merocel group, however, the difference did not reach statistical significance. On the removal of Merocel/retainer, patients with the retainer reported significantly lower nasal pain. In the retainer group, grade 1 bleeding was reported in 45.5%, and grade 0 bleeding in 54.5%. In the Merocel group, grade 2 bleeding was reported in 23.5%, grade 1 in 47.1%, and grade 0 in 29.4%. These findings suggest the achievement of more benefits with the nasal septal retainer use after septoplasty than using nasal packing.