Rhinoplasty Korea

I had the joy to guest edit a special issue ' The key to costal cartilage in rhinoplasty' in journal 'Plastic and Aesthetic Research'. This special issue covers all issues of rib cartilage use in rhinoplasty; cutting edge techniques of harvesting and carving, application of rib cartilage in primary and revision rhinoplasty, practical points for proper preoperative and postoperative care, and diced cartilage and homologous cartilage applications. I invited world renowned rhinoplasty surgeons who are specialists in dealing with rib cartilage use. I hope rhinoplasty surgeons who wants to use rib cartilage in their practice will benefit from the wisdom of the experts.

This gentleman had a few failed previous rhinoplasties and finally ended up with upturned tip with nose contraction. At surgery, there was no allplast inside but a long K-wire fixed to the anterior nasal spine supporting the tip was removed. All cartilage grafts removed, recarved, and used as septal extension graft and extended spreader grafts to fix it. Skin was widely undermined to mobilize to the elongated new dome. Conchal composite graft was used to fill the gap between elongated skin and the deficient mucosa on the right side. Even though this is an early postoperative photos, you can recongnize the elongated nose with pushed down nostril margin and columella. Even without using rib cartilage, short upturned nose can be fixed effectively.

Diced cartilage in fascia was used in silicone-related contracted nose patient. She had a silicone implant on the nose and the tip was up-rotated due to contracture. Her nose looked short and the tip was upturned. Silicone was removed from the dorsum and the deficient dorsum was filled with diced rib cartilage in temporalis fascia. Her tip was elongated using septal extension graft and tip grafts. After surgery, her dorsum looks natural and the tip was refined with optimal lengthening.

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.