Background: Ala and nostril collapse are most raised complaints in secondary deformity of unilateral cleft patients. While a lot of techniques have been introduced so far, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of edge locked stitching between nostril ala and lateral cartilages with mucochondrial Z-plasty to correct the collapse in lower lateral cartilage in the ala and nostril shaping.
Methods: Fifty-seven patients with unilateral cleft nasal deformities were recruited. They all had primary surgery before and were left with nasal deformities. Based on the anatomic understanding, we operated on all the patients using edge locked stitching between nostril ala and lateral cartilages with a mucochondrial Z-plasty to correct the abnormal lateral collapse of nostril deformities.
Results: All the patients had an improvement in the shape of the ala and nostril immediately after the surgery. Follow-up at 6 months (or later) showed no severe relapse.
Conclusion: The edge locked stitching between nostril ala and lateral cartilages with mucochondrial Z-plasty is effective to correct ala and nostril deformities in unilateral cleft.