Can a revision be done on otoplasty performed 15 years ago?
Had from what the one pic will show is presumably a botched otoplasty 16 years ago.
I have this excessive "tissue" in my left ear that my right doesn't have.
Now that I'm older and more financially secure, I'm looking at a revision or perhaps just
excising this "skin".
Could there be sutures still in place that are too secure to be causing this fold in
me ear?
Professional advice and recommendations please.
Thank you for your question!
In your question, you submitted a photo of your ear and you’re asking if can revision
surgery be done for what you perceive was a botched otoplasty 15 or 16 years ago.
So with the photo you submitted, certainly it is helpful and in the absence of a physical
examination, I can at least give you some perspective and perhaps the term botched is
a little too strong to describe your previous surgery.
To give you a little background, I’m a board certified cosmetic surgeon.
Otoplasty is a procedure we perform in our practice and I can certainly give you my perspective
based on some anatomic principles which can help you probably understand what the mindset
is in choosing procedures to help people with prominent ears.
To begin with, let’s start with terminology.
The first issue and the area where you see “excess tissue” is in the central part
of the ear and this is called the conchal bowl.
And the term for prominent ears which are related to with or increased protuberance
of the conchal bowl is called conchal bowl hypertrophy.
Now that area, in my practice, what we do is we resect or reduce the cartilage and reattach
the cartilage to the side of the scalp in the area called the mastoid fascia.
Now I feel that’s more anatomic in comparison to other procedures that are sometimes offered
particularly for patients whose cartilage is soft and that procedure is called the setback
procedure.
And I have a suspicion that this is might what you have done where sutures were used
to pull the ear back into position but because the cartilage has a lot of memory and it’s
kind of brittle, it can break and create this potential irregularity.
Again, I wasn’t there for the original surgery, I can’t say exactly.
A physical exam is also helpful.
You can feel what the cartilage feels like but if you are bothered by that, then that’s
something that can be addressed.
Just for completion, there’s also an upper part of the ear which is referred to as the
antihelical fold.
And what is commonly the issue for people who have prominent ears is the absence or
lack of development of the antihelical fold.
And for that, there are procedures particularly one called the Mustard procedure where the
sutures are placed in a certain way after the cartilage is weakened to try to recreate
an anatomic fold.
So I think that your next step is to meet with doctors who perform otoplasty.
It is a very interesting procedure that can certainly be dramatic in the improvement but
if you want to do both ears and the one ear is the one that bothers you, you also have
to measure and see and compare it to the other ear is projected away from the skin.
There are a lot of nuances that can’t all be addressed with just a single photo from
one angle.
But I think that at least to give you some hope, it’s likely, based on the photo you
submitted, that some type of revision surgery is possible.
So I hope that was helpful, I wish you the best of luck and thank you for your question!