[The anatomical structure similarity research on auricular cartilage and nasal alar cartilage]

There are many scaffold materials of repairing nasal alar cartilage defects. Auricuiar cartilage was used extensively in terms of its abundant tissues, good elasticity, little donor-site malformation, good plasticity etc. The authors dissected auricular cartilage and nasal alar cartilage, measured cartilage's morphous data and found some similar territories with nasal alar cartilage in the structure of auricular cartilage.

An anatomical study was performed using 10 adult cadavers acquired through Plastic Surgery Hospital, Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China. Seven male and three female cadav-ers were included in the study. Harvest 20 auricular cartilage specimens and 20 nasal alar cartilage specimens. Then, Computed Tomography Scan on the auricular cartilage and nasal alar cartilage were performed. The datas were imported into mimics and three-dimensional reconstructions of the auricular cartilage and nasal alar cartilage were carried on.

Parts of the auricular cartilage, such as conchal fossa, tragus, intertragic notch, and cymba of auricular concha, curs of helix and curs of helix, triangular fossa, are ana-tomically similar to nasal alar cartilage.

This study reports the anatomy of auricular cartilage and nasal alar cartilage, found some territories in the auricular cartilage, such as conchal fossa, tragus, intertragic notch, and cymba of auricular concha, curs of helix and curs of helix, triangular fossa, are anatomically similar to nasal alar cartilage. This research provides the anatomical basis that auricular cartilage was used to repair the nasal cartilage defect.