Autologous cartilage techniques have exploded in popularity and have become widely adopted by rhinoplasty surgeons throughout the world in the 2000s as the techniques have proven to be the safest and most predictable in achieving permanent results. While initially reserved primarily for reconstructive cases and for complex revision rhinoplasty cases prior to the turn of the current century given the inherently increased difficulty in harvesting and crafting noses from a disparate part of the body, the tide has turned away from the quick and easy use of silicone, Goretex, Medpor and other off the shelf synthetic implants that provide limited downtime but also limited results and a lack of permanence.
Especially for Asian patients, the need for additional structure and support fo the intrinsic architecture of the nose has presented a challenge for rhinoplasty surgeons from the start. The solution for this challenge has been attempted my myriad Asian plastic surgeons and non-Asian plastic surgeons alike, with varying degrees of success but ultimately all failing to achieve ideal results. Materials as varied as jade, wax, and ivory were stuffed inside unfortunate noses in an attempt to augment or build them up. During the Korean war, early plastic surgeons like Ralph Millard tried to apply crude reconstructive techniques to reshape Korean noses in the most rudimentary of ways, with Asian nose job results that could only be objectively described as abject failures by today’s standards. A breakthrough for Asian rhinoplasty came in the 1970s, when silicone implants became widespread and widely adopted as a safe and reliable method, at least for the short term, in achieving dorsal augmentation.
Fast forward a few decades into the 1990s, and plastic surgeons began seeing the untoward effects of placing a foreign body and synthetic object in an area with a fragile blood supply and delicate soft tissue coverage like the nose. Graft visibility, mobility, infection, and even implant extrusion was happening by the droves. Out of the desire to achieve safer, longer-lasting results came the move towards using tissue from a patient’s own body, that would become fully integrated with zero chance of rejection and thus minimizing the risk of complications as much as possible.
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