Prevention and non-surgical treatment of soft tissue polly beak deformity after rhinoplasty: a scoping review

Abstract

The aim of this study is to map the available evidence of surgical preventive measures and postoperative methods for addressing supratip fibrosis (polly beak deformity) following rhinoplasty, to describe the postoperative results and to identify the most effective techniques. A scoping review was performed, selecting articles from the following medical electronic databases: PubMed, Cochrane Central, EMBASE, and Web of Science up to October 2022. The following keywords were used: supratip fullness, supratip deformity, polly beak deformity and supratip fibrosis. A total of 19 studies met the eligibility criteria. Of these 18 were included, and were divided into two categories: studies that solely used non-surgical management and studies that used operative techniques to prevent soft tissue polly beak deformity. Cartilaginous causes of polly beak deformity were excluded. Although a number of different methods are described in literature, the effectiveness and potential of each are still open to debate. Randomized controlled trials that use a standardized objective measurement method for soft tissue polly beak deformity are needed to objectively compare different methods.

Keywords: Polly beak deformity; Rhinoplasty; Supratip fibrosis.