Augmentation Rhinoplasty
Are you thinking about surgery to make your nasal bridge more prominent or your tip more projected and defined? When performed by a specialist, augmentation rhinoplasty creates high satisfaction is patients who have the proper expectations of what can be achieved surgically. Board Certified Facial Plastic Surgeon Dr. Thomas Buonassisi is a highly trained and specialized Vancouver rhinoplasty surgeon, who focuses much of his practice on nasal surgery. He has extensive experience with the grafts and implants that are used to augment the nose. Augmentation rhinoplasty is often, but not always requested by Asian patients, who desire more bridge and tip definition.
How Is the Nose Surgically Augmented?
There are several ways to augment the nose including the use of both natural and synthetic implant materials. This video explains implant options.
Benefits of Augmentation Rhinoplasty
- increased height of the nasal bridge
- more definition of the bridge on front view
- sometimes performed with alar base reduction to narrow the nostrils
- increased definition of the tip
How Augmentation Rhinoplasty is Performed
The underlying nasal framework is exposed through small incisions inside the nose and sometimes in the columellar skin. The nose can be augmented with the patient's own cartilage (if available) using septal cartilage grafts or a nasal implant. Common materials for implants include Gortex or soft silicone. The nasal tip often requires augmentation as well and this is may be done with the patient's own cartilage, harvested from the ear or septum. Once these modifications are complete the skin settles back onto the augmented nasal framework and the internal incisions are closed with dissolvable stitches.
Other Features that can be Improved at the same Time as Augmentation Rhinoplasty:
- Tip refinement: typical requests for the tip include, refining a bulbous appearance, projecting or deprojecting. In most cases, when changes to the tip are requested, changes to the other parts of the nose are required as well. This is because the nose is a three dimensional features, and changes made to one area can change the way the other areas appear in contrast.
- Tip projection: sometimes the tip area of the nose can appear short and round - this is improved by projecting the tip away from the nose more, often times combined with tip defining techniques to give this area more shape
- Narrow nasal bones: Often the bridge of the nose appears to be too wide. In this case, the nasal bones are narrowed.
- Bridge augmentation: this can be achieved using the patient's own cartilage, taken from the septum or the ear. Often, hand shaped Gortex implants can be used for this purpose.
- Alar base reduction: to reduce the width of wide nostrils
What Techniques are Best for You?
The most appropriate approach depends on your specific nasal features, your objectives for the surgery and Dr. Buonassisi's assessment of the risks and benefits of the surgery. During your surgical consult, Dr. Buonassisi will assess your nasal features, clearly explain the pros and cons of each technique, and recommend the most suitable approach for you. You can review your consultation options.
