As a Beverly Hills Rhinoplasty and Revision Rhinoplasty specialist I have seen people from all over the world who are looking to have their “bad work” corrected. Many of my patients have had their noses done many times and often in other countries.
Often times patients like this have adequate septal cartilage left in their nose to allow for an excellent reconstruction. The less sophisticated Rhinoplasty surgeons usually don’t violate the septum which actually makes the reconstruction fairly easy. When the septum has been violated then we need another source of cartilage or material to facilitate the reconstruction. I usually take rib cartilage because it provides an excellent and copious amount of cartilage. The healing from the chest incision and dissection is not as bad as it may sound. Rib cartilage is the standard of care and is the most commonly used technique by sophisticated rhinoplasty surgeons to do reconstructions. However, I do see people who do not want their chest operated on and for these people I do offer them the use of Medpore which is a synthetic mesh-like material that has similar strength and weight to cartilage. Medpore can be used safely and effectively in most of the areas of the nose that need to be restructured following poor previous rhinoplasty procedures. By using Medpore, the operating time is significantly less than when rib cartilage is used and therefore, the cost to the patient is less. I have used Medpore in about 100 people since 2002 and I have never had an adverse outcome. I would never try to talk anyone into using Medpore and I will always recommend rib cartilage over Medpore but it is an option for those who want to keep the surgery time and cost to a minimum.