Revision Rhinoplasty

Revision rhinoplasty is a nose operation performed to correct or revise an unsatisfactory outcome from a previous rhinoplasty. An unsatisfactory outcome occurs from 5% to 20% of rhinoplasties. There are two main reasons for performing secondary rhinoplasty. Patients often seek secondary rhinoplasty to correct a cosmetic deformity of the nose. A patient may be unsatisfied with all or part of a previous "nose reshaping." The reduction of the nasal fracture may be not enough, or too much. Inappropriate addressing of a prominent or bulbous nasal tip may have not been or over-aggressively. The nose looks pinched; it may look like a parrot's beak, or like a boxer's nose. Nose surgery may have left a nose aesthetically unappealing to a patient in many ways. Another reason for revision is functional. The original nasal surgery to help with difficulties in breathing and the outcome may have been unsatisfactory. Alternatively, the original cosmetic surgery disrupted a normal physiologic mechanism involving the inspiration or expiration of air, making it difficult to breathe. Secondary rhinoplasty is a procedure often said to be extremely complicated. Because the surgery may destroy or deform nasal framework, revision rhinoplasty experts frequently must reconstruct the support structures of the nose using cartilage grafts either from the ear or from rib cartilage. Advances in rhinoplasty techniques, such as stabilization of rib cartilage grafts and utilization of the open approach, now allow satisfactory results in secondary rhinoplasty.