Nasal reconstruction in panfacial burns: useful techniques in challenging cases

Nasal reconstruction after severe panfacial burns can be challenging to correct because of scarring, loss of suitable donor sites, and variably limited blood supply of local flaps. We describe 2 cases of subtotal nasal reconstruction in which we overcame these difficulties. Both cases had alar subunit loss, which had left significant functional and esthetic deformities. However, both cases were managed very differently because of availability of donor sites.The first patient had 70% total body surface area burns with bilateral alar subunit loss: nasal reconstruction required a meticulous multistaged forehead flap. The second patient required nasal reconstruction using a turn-down flap to maximize take of a composite graft from previously burned ear donor sites.A number of surgical techniques have been described to manage subtotal burns nasal reconstruction, foremost of which are the nasolabial and paramedian forehead flaps. Cartilage grafts from the septum and the conchal bowl can be integrated into these flaps. Composite grafts can be unpredictable and are often used with caution.Such cases demonstrate that large composite grafts can be an extremely robust method of reconstruction even in a subset of patients with extensively scarred recipient and donor sites. In our second case, composite grafting avoided multistaged procedures such as the forehead flap and can be considered as a first-line procedure in large alar subunit loss.