Building the Perfect Nose
Reported March 2008
BALTIMORE, Md. (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Patients who have been disfigured by birth defects, accidents or disease could have the opportunity to lead a new life, with a unique new way to re-build noses and other facial features.
Samantha Winpiglar and Pat Petricko had nose cancer, and had all or part of their noses removed.
"When I came out of surgery a couple of times and saw what my face looked like, what my nose looked like, I did a lot of crying," says Petricko.
"People actually didn't recognize me as who I was," adds Winpiglar.
Now, being recognized isn't a problem. Since their dramatic transformations as the result of a unique process that facial, plastic and reconstruction surgeons use to re-build and make new, realistic noses.
"So what we started doing is creating custom noses in the lab with the patients, and doing so in a way that it would provide a perfect fit to the face," says Patrick Byrne, M.D., a facial plastic surgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Md.
A 3-D image of a patient's face is created. Then a laser beam scans a sculpted nose producing a digital model of a new nose. Then a clear prototype of the nose is made that doctors use as a template during surgery, re-constructing a nose using skin and cartilage from other parts of the body.
The procedure means patients get a permanent, custom-fit, real nose. For Pat and Samantha it's made looking into the mirror easier, liking what they see.
"My nose is a little bit different, but for the overall picture I'm still the same," says Petricko.
"As far as who I am what I do … that hasn't changed at all, just maybe a stronger, a stronger person," says Winpiglar.
Doctors also use the process to rebuild other parts of the body, like ears, hands and feet.
Click here to Go Inside This Science or contact:
David March
Media Relations and Public Affairs
Johns Hopkins Medicine
Baltimore, MD
(410) 955-1534
dmarch1@jhmi.edu
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