Objective
To evaluate the aesthetic and functional outcomes of a full-thickness skin graft and a separately harvested auricular cartilage graft for nasal alar defects created by Mohs micrographic surgery.
Design
Twenty patients with deep Mohs micrographic surgery defects of the nasal ala who underwent reconstruction with a full-thickness skin graft and an auricular cartilage graft were prospectively studied at a single tertiary care institution between 2010 and 2011 in a nonrandomized, nonblinded study. An ordinal 5-point Likert scale evaluation of overall outcomes was performed by 4 independent surgeon raters.
Results
The mean outcome for use of the full-thickness skin and auricular cartilage graft construct was a score of 2.3 on a scale of 1 through 5, with 1 being excellent and 5 being poor. The mean duration of follow-up was 6 months, with a range of 5 weeks to 23 months. There were no clinically meaningful losses of constructs in the patients studied.
Conclusion
A full-thickness skin graft and a separately harvested auricular cartilage graft are valuable and reliable tools for reconstructing deep nasal alar defects that require support to prevent alar retraction or collapse, particularly when a single-stage procedure is preferred or necessary because of medical comorbidities.