Otoplasty is a surgical procedure to correct an unsightly or prominent auricle. Any adult or child with the anatomical defects liste below, resulting in a proven detachment of the ears or a visible congenital or acquire malformation has the possibility of having otoplasty.
There are 3 main abnormalities characteristic of protruding ears:
- A folding defect of the antihelix: the Y-shaped fold naturally present at the level of the ear is absent.
- Concha hypertrophy: the cartilage of the concha is prominent or detached, which projects the ear forward.
- A valgus of the lobe: the lobe of the ear is too detaching.
The purpose of otoplasty is two-fold:
- Aesthetics: Its objective is to correct the morphology of the pavilion, deemed too prominent or unsightly. The intervention therefore makes it possible to correct the anomalies by retouching the cartilage, in order to obtain “glued” ears with a natural appearance and symmetry.
- Restorative: it concerns patients with a partial or total absence of the pavilion following a congenital malformation or trauma.
Otoplasty performing, under general anesthesia or assisted local anesthesia, obviously after a preoperative assessment and an interview with the anesthesiologist, or under local anesthesia. Its duration is approximately 45 minutes to 1 hour. And hospitalization is carried out on an outpatient basis, i.e. entry and exit on the same day of the intervention.
A period of one to two months is necessary to appreciate the final result. This is the time necessary for the tissues to have softene and for all of the edema to be resorbed, leaving the reliefs of the ear clearly visible. After this time, only the scars will still be a little pink and harde before fading.
The intervention will most often have made it possible to effectively correct the anomalies present and to obtain ears normally positioned and oriented, well plicate, symmetrical, of natural size and appearance, not hypertrophied. In the vast majority of cases, the results are final.