Nasal valve surgery; our experience with the valve suspension technique.
OBJECTIVE
To describe and evaluate our experience with the surgical technique of nasal valve suspension for treating nasal valve insufficiency.


METHODS
Twenty patients with nasal valve insufficiency underwent nasal valve suspension (a total of 33 sides). The patients were prospectively studied and their nasal patency was rated per side pre- and postoperatively, by subjective self-evaluation on a scale from 1 to 10.


RESULTS
Post-operatively 7 sides (21%) were rated as unchanged, on 17 sides (52%) the improvement was from 1 to 3 out of 10, and on 9 sides (27%) 4 or more out of 10. The average post-operative improvement for all sides was 2.3 out of 10. In five patients (25%) complications occurred, such as pain, inflammation and suborbital swelling and three eventually underwent a re-exploration of the surgical area, resulting in a permanent scar in one patient.


CONCLUSIONS
Although nasal valve suspension may be beneficial for some patients, based on our experience, we would not recommend this technique as first line treatment for nasal valve insufficiency. In this series we found relatively limited improvement in most patients and a far higher complication rate compared with other nasal valve procedures we have had experience with in the past.
André
Robert F
RF
Department of Otolaryngology/Facial Plastic Surgery, Rijnland Hospital, Leiderdorp, The Netherlands. r.andre@rijnland.nl
Vuyk
Hadé D
HD
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015508:Nasal Obstruction / Q000601:surgery*; D009300:Nasal Septum / Q000002:abnormalities / Q000601:surgery*; D011183:Postoperative Complications; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012225:Rhinoplasty / Q000379:methods*; D013536:Suture Techniques; D016896:Treatment Outcome