Limitations
Several limitations of the present study should be mentioned. Firstly, paranasal sinusitis was diagnosed by MRI, which lacks a description of the patient’s subjective symptoms. Although patients with asymptomatic sinusitis can be overlooked, there is the additional possibility of overdiagnosis due to the sensitivity of MRI. Furthermore, we could not distinguish between acute and chronic sinusitis. Future studies should evaluate the prevalence of paranasal sinusitis in the general population using a combination of MRI and/or CT and the relevant symptoms. Secondly, CT is superior to MRI for the examination of anatomical bone variations, which is an important risk factor for paranasal sinusitis32. Lastly, paranasal sinusitis in children is also a common problem 33; however, our research participants were limited to individuals aged 35–75 years due to factors such as cooperation. Therefore, the findings may not be applicable to the general population.