Primary Rhinoplasty Does Not Interfere with Nasal Growth: A Long-Term Three-Dimensional Morphometric Outcome Study in Patients with Unilateral Cleft.

Abstract

Primary rhinoplasty has not been universally adopted because the potential for nasal growth impairment remains an unsolved issue in cleft care. This study's purpose was to assess the long-term effects of primary rhinoplasty performed by a single surgeon in a cohort of patients with a unilateral cleft lip nose deformity. Three-dimensional nasal morphometric measurements (linear, angular, proportional, surface area, and volume) were collected from consecutive patients (cleft group, n = 52; mean age, 19 ± 1 year) who had undergone primary rhinoplasty with the use of the Noordhoff approach between 1995 and 2002 and reached skeletal maturity. Normal age-, sex-, and ethnicity-matched subjects (control group, n = 52) were identified for comparative analyses. No significant differences (all p > 0.05) were observed for most measures, including nasal height, alar width, nasal dorsum angle, columellar angle, columellar-labial angle, nasal tip/height ratio, nasal index, alar width/intercanthal distance ratio, nasal surface area, and nasal volume. The cleft group displayed significantly (all p < 0.05) lower nasal bridge length and nasal tip projection, and greater nasal protrusion, tip/midline deviation, nasal tip angle, nasal tip protrusion width index, and alar width/mouth ratio values than the control group. Primary rhinoplasty does not interfere with nasal growth as measured by three-dimensional photogrammetric analysis. Further imaging studies are required for the assessment of development in other anatomical nasal structures. Therapeutic, IV.