Tipplasty
Tipplasty or nasal tip aesthetics is an aesthetic surgery performed to reshape the tip of the nose in line with the patient’s demands. With this surgery, it is aimed to change the lift, width and length of the nose tip to obtain a nose tip that is more suitable for the patient’s face and complements its profile. Tipplasty does not cause any changes in the nasal dorsum and bones. It is the most suitable surgical procedure for patients who are generally satisfied with their nose structure but want to improve the appearance of the nose tip, and has become increasingly popular in recent years.
Although tipplasty is actually a branch of rhinoplasty surgery, it can also be considered as a separate surgical procedure that we perform on patients who only want the tip of the nose to be shaped.
While the upper part of the nose consists of cartilage and bone, the basic structure of the tip of the nose consists of cartilages and soft tissues called ligaments, which connect these cartilages to each other and to the surrounding tissues. Eliminating problems such as correcting the asymmetries at the tip of the patient’s nose, making the nose tip dimensions more compatible with the patient’s face, or increasing the definition of the tip of the nose. The desired result is achieved by correcting the shape and position of the cartilages at the tip of the nose.
Tipplasty surgery is performed under general anesthesia and one of two basic approach techniques is preferred. In the open technique, an incision is made in the part called columella located in the middle of the nostrils to access the tip of the nose, while in the closed technique, incisions made inside the nose provide access to the nasal tip cartilages. The cartilages are dissected from the surrounding tissues and revealed. It is placed and the tip of the nose is restructured by making millimetric incisions and shaping of the cartilages (taking into account the patient’s demands).
Before tipplasty surgery, the patient has a realistic expectation and knows the limits of tipplasty surgery, as well as good patient-physician communication plays a critical role in the success of the surgery. Since the back of the patient’s nose is not touched, when designing a new nose tip, the patient’s compatibility with the other parts of the nose must be prioritized, and it is essential for an ideal result that the entire nose is compatible with the face. It is extremely important for the physician to listen carefully to the patient’s demands, evaluate whether these demands are realistic, and the compatibility of the possible outcome with the face, and inform the patient accordingly in order to minimize the risk of postoperative failure.
The main material used when reshaping the tip of the nose, whether considered as a step of rhinoplasty surgery or as tipplasty alone, is cartilage. Cartilage is the basic material I use in the mobile nose tip because it is both strong and flexible. When planning tipplasty, just like in rhinoplasty, the first choice, if any, is the cartilage in the region of the patient’s nose, which we call the septum. In cases where there is not enough cartilage in the nose, such as in patients of ethnic origin or patients who have had previous nose surgery, as an alternative, cartilage is taken from the ribs and ears and the tip of the nose is reconstructed. used in shaping.
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Healing
In open technique surgeries, the stitches placed in the incision at the tip of the nose are usually removed in the first week, while in both open and closed techniques, the stitches inside the nose are preferred as dissolvable stitches and they dissolve spontaneously over time. It is recommended to apply antibiotic cream to the area where the stitches are located during the first 1 week to prevent infection and to prevent crusting in the wound area. .
Since most of the bruises after rhinoplasty are caused by bone interventions and no operations are performed on the bones in tipplasty surgery, the bruises are less common after the procedure compared to rhinoplasty. Postoperative swelling depends on personal factors such as the patient’s skin thickness as well as the healing ability of his body, but in general, we can say that the patient will have less swelling since more limited procedures are performed in a smaller area compared to rhinoplasty. However, most of the swelling resolves within the first 2 months, and the final shape of the nasal tip appears after approximately 1 year.
Tipplasty is a surgery that reshapes and supports the cartilages at the tip of the nose, where complex arrangements are made, both for minor corrections at the tip of the nose and for complex adjustments that include complete restructuring of the tip of the nose, such as curvature. Success in tipplasty surgery basically depends on the surgery being performed by an experienced surgeon, just like in rhinoplasty, and a good patient-physician collaboration that is established before the surgery and continues afterwards.