In their recent article, Al-Faky and colleagues compared lacrimal probing with nasolacrimal intubation in a large number of children. A subset of procedures was performed on children with a known clinical history of dacryocystitis (25 of 515).' I question the treatment modality offered to these children. It is well accepted that if a patient develops dacryocystitis, regardless of his or her age, the patient has a nasolacrimal duct obstruction that requires a dacryocystorhinostomy to properly prevent such occurrences, and potential serious complications, in the future. The authors found the success rate in such patients to be 0% (0/9) for probing and 69% (11/16) for lacrimal intubation. x The authors do not comment on what happened to the surgical failures in this subgroup of patients, but I imagine dacryocystorhinostomy was offered.
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