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Updated: May 13, 2026
Surgical Approach to Full Soft Tissue Face Allograft Procurement for Vascularized Composite Allotransplantation
Published on: December 30, 2025
Full-thickness skin graft overlying a separately harvested auricular cartilage graft for nasal alar reconstruction
David A Zopf1, Wade Iams, Jennifer C Kim
1Department of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery, Division of Facial Plastic Surgery, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.
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.
