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Dr. Miller News & Press
New in Plasic Surgery: Radiesse and IPL - find out what they can do for you.
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In many ways we are interested this morning in learning about columellar struts. If you are seeking a rhinoplasty consultation you may hear about that and I’d like this morning to explain what that is. Again we must understand nasal anatomy before we can understand what a columellar strut is. This graft particularly relates to the lower third of the nose.
There is an upper third, middle third and lower third, which comprises cartilage and it is called the tip. This cartilage called the lower lateral cartilage looks like a horseshoe bent 90 degrees. The horizontal part is located right here and you can often feel that and then it turns around 90 degrees and it forms two parallel pieces of cartilage down in this region. That region which you can put your fingers in and move is called the columella. So we’ve got two pieces of cartilage that are parallel to one another and in many ways they form a vertical beam that is responsible for the projection of the tip so if I turn my head here you can see that has I push down on the tip of the nose it’s responsible primarily for pushing back the two cartilages right here.
Now in patients who need further support of those two cartilages in the columella. A physician can insert a collumela strut. What that is is a piece of cartilage taken from elsewhere in your body, typically from the septum, which separates the right and left nostril and that cartilage is sculpted in fashion and fit between those two parallel structures. Therefore, it reinforces those two medial pleura, those two vertical pieces of cartilage. And therefore when you press on the tip it will be a little bit more firm and this helps in the projection and the maintenance of the projection of the nose.
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Dr. Philip Miller, MD, FACS, New York plastic surgeon