gms | German Medical Science

Introduction: Causes for a nasal obstruction are in many cases, beside septum deviation or hyperplastic turbinates, instabilities of the nasal valves, in the meaning of a weakness of the lateral cartilage. For treatment of that instability, several surgical techniques were established in the past, however, with often only poor functional results.

As an alternative method, we use the Breathe^® Implant according to áWengen for stabilization of the nasal valve area. Its operative handling is easy. Because of availability of different sizes the implant is individually adaptable in the best possible way.

Methods: The titanium implant in form of a clasp is being implanted via an open rhinoplasty. During the past 18 months, we used the implant in 16 patients so far, with functional relevant nasal valve stenoses. For the check-up, we used a questionnaire for assessment of a discomfort score relating to nasal obstruction, nasal breathing-related sleep disorders, post-operative pain, foreign-body-feelings, and cosmetic satisfaction.

Results: Apart from one patient, all other patients experienced a considerable improvement of their discomforts. This one patient, after improvement in the first place, later suffered again from turbinate hypertrophy. All of the patients were completely satisfied with the cosmetic result. No major complications, like extrusion or infection of the implant, have occurred so far.

Conclusions: According to our experience, the Breathe^® Implant according to áWengen is an effective and cosmetically unobtrusive method for the treatment of nasal valve stenoses.