How Does Skin Thickness Affect Rhinoplasty?
Skin thickness changes the whole surgery, Dr. Naderi says. Thick skin acts like a heavy canvas, so the cartilage often has to be strengthened with grafts and sutures to show definition, while thin skin shows every small change. Thicker skin also swells more as it heals.
Key Points from Dr. Naderi
- The skin drapes over the reshaped cartilage and bone, so its thickness changes the approach.
- Thick skin weighs down the framework, and many patients with thicker skin also have weaker cartilage.
- With thick skin, adding cartilage and placing sutures gives more definition and a narrower tip.
- With thin skin, small, meticulous changes show through.
- Thicker skin swells more and may need steroid injections later, but both skin types can get very nice results.
Full Transcript
I think this is really important in rhinoplasty, because if you think about the surgery, essentially we make the changes underneath the skin. We change the cartilage, we change the bone, we rearrange it, but then the skin has to drape over the nose. It's the icing on the cake. If the skin is very thick versus very thin, the approach is different. The surgery is different.
I'll give you an example. Very thick skin is almost like a heavy canvas. It weighs down the cartilage and the bone. A lot of patients with thicker skin are ethnic patients who also happen to have weaker cartilages. So to get better definition, and actually a narrower tip, you have to add cartilage and place sutures to modify the cartilage. Whereas in thinner-skinned patients, you make a very meticulous move, and that meticulous move shows up, because the thin skin just drapes over that area. So it's a very different surgery.
The healing phase is also different. With thicker skin, there's a little bit more swelling. You may require some steroid injections later on. But essentially, with either type of skin thickness, you can get really nice results.
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