secondary nose surgery

Does the patient require to do a secondary surgery or retouching?

According to statistics from the famous American surgeons‘ books, about 10-20% of patients undergone rhinoplasty would need a second operation. These statistics seem to be somewhat exaggerated. As based on my own experience since 2000, a maximum of 1 to 1.5 percent of my patients have been made to do secondary surgery or retouching after rhinoplasty. However, retouching does not necessarily mean the failure of the previous surgery.

It may mean that the surgeon could have not resolved all the solvable problems in the first surgery and some partial problems have still remained. In the hands of a good surgeon, the nose should never become worse than what has previously existed. Then, the need for retouching a nose surgery may refer to correct a part of problems failed in correction in the first surgery or done incompletely. Therefore, the surgeon needs to do them in a second stage, which does not mean the surgery has worsened the patient’s nose condition.

It is sometimes done to correct the breathing problems. It rarely occurs that the surgeon deliberately postpones the correction a part of a difficult nasal surgery to the next stage. However, it is basically preferred to correct all nasal problems, whether respiratory or rhinoplasty, in the first stage as much as possible. Even in cases of minor problems, do retouching requires to wait for a while. Depending on the problem, retouching may be delayed 6 to 12 months so that the problem can be detected more accurately to take action for fixing. Also, the nasal tissue need enough time to get ready for another surgery. The surgeon may rarely decide to manipulate the nose in the first weeks, and the issue is very rare.