Rhinoplasty Korea

Nasal filler injection is a simple, effective method to fill small depression of the nasal dorsum or low radix. It is also used to augment generalized low profile nose. Hyaluronic acid filler is most commonly used for this purpose and its effect lasts for about 6 months. With all these merits, nasal filler injection has dangerous traps to avoid. One of them is nasal vessel obstruction causing necrosis. Faulty technique and excessive amount of injection are common causes of this disastrous event. Aggressive initial treatment including hyaluronidase injection is of utmost important when symptoms or signs of vessel obstruction appear. Below are the serial photographs of one patient who developed nasal partial necrosis after filler injection. He is now waiting for wound to heal and future nasal reconstruction using forehead flap.

This lady has deviated silicone implant and associated short, contracted nose. It is a very common complication of silicone implant rhinoplasty. Revision rhinoplasty included silicone removal, replacing the silicone with rib cartilage, and lengthening the nose and tip. Only autogenous materials like rib cartilage can enable all these procedures. Filling the empty, excavated dorsum with carved rib cartilage requires a lot of efforts. Tedious carving to prevent warping, secure fixation of the graft to the widely dissected dorsum, making a smooth transition from forehead to nose, prevention of an operated look, etc. Lengthening the contracted skin needs wide undermining of skin, making a stable flatform to fix the lengthened tip cartilage and skin, and filling the deficient vestibular skin if present. Behind the 3 series of pre and postoperative photos below lie 4 hours of focused efforts of a rhinoplasty surgeon.   

Using rib cartilage in rhinoplasty needs lots of attention both in patient's and surgeon's perspective. For patient, it means additional incision on the chest, possible harvest site complications including chest pain, scar, and penumothorax, more cost, longer surgery time, and possibility of warping. From the surgone's perspective, rib cartilage is usually the last resort of autogenous material for rhinoplasty. It affords a lot of possibilities for rhinoplasty such as dorsal augmentation, tip grafts, and lots of septal grafts, all of which are not possible with other autogenous sources. It also means a lot of experience is necessary for skillful use of rib cartilage. I have used rib cartilage for rhinoplasty for more than 15 years. As cases accumulate, I can harvest the rib with small incision (less than 1.5 cm) without any complications such as peumothorax or severe pain. I do not cut the muscle and only retract it and this helps to reduce pain. Scar can be minimi...