What happens during this procedure?

While doing the procedure on an Asian nose, a few different things are done. An implant is usually placed in the nose. Implants refer to the material that can be used to build up the nose. It can be either the bone or cartilage that can be taken from the patient, or an implant that can be made or purchased from a manufacturer of nose implants. Most surgeons who operate on Asians tend to buy implants from manufacturers because they are easy to obtain and entail minimal complications. Making an implant out of the patient’s bone and cartilage cannot be very predictable and tends to give extra scars and makes the surgery longer. Therefore, manufactured nasal implants have been in use for the past 40 to 50 years, and have a very good success rate.

For the tip of the nose, Dr. Kwan prefers to build it with a cartilage graft. It is cartilage that is usually taken from inside the nose or from the ear. It is shaped and placed into the tip of the nose to give it a nicer shape. However, some Asians may tend to have a nose that is tall enough, but also wide. These patients may actually need to have their noses narrowed. With this procedure, the nose actually becomes taller. But in cases where the nose is still not tall enough, it may require a combined procedure of narrowing the nose, along with building up the nose bridge with an implant. The tip of the nose is addressed in the same way with either cartilage, or by stitching it up together. The scars tend to be inside the nose, so there are minimal external scars.

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