Cleft-lip nose fix OK at 16 for girls, 17 for boys
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Girls with facial clefts can safely undergo surgical reshaping of the nose at age 16, when nasal growth is mature in most individuals; for boys the operation can be performed at 17, Dutch researchers report.
Dr. Perry van der Heijden and colleagues from the University Medical Center Groningen note that most specialists in treating cleft palate and cleft lip put off nose reshaping, known as rhinoseptoplasty, until young people are 18. At this age, growth is thought to have slowed enough that it will not affect the results of the operation, they explain in the Archives of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery.
“However, the dogma stating that nasal surgery in growing individuals must be avoided is coming under question,” they add. Earlier surgery may be particularly beneficial to adolescents with cleft palate, who are often unhappy with their appearance and report being teased, the researchers point out.
To examine when rhinoseptoplasty could be performed safely in younger people, van der Heijden and his team reviewed the medical literature on several measures of nasal growth. For girls, they found, growth accelerates the most between 8 and 12 years, while for boys growth velocity peaks at around age 13. While it would be ideal to perform the surgery when the nose growth curve levels off, the researchers note, this is impossible because people’s noses continue to grow all their lives.
But by combining the data on nasal growth rate with information on height growth patterns and skeletal maturity, van der Heijden and his team were able to calculate that nose growth is mature in 98 percent of girls by age 15.8 years of age, and in 98 percent of boys by 16.9 years.
“Because the results of nasal interventions performed after maturation age are not likely to be disturbed by nasal growth, rhinoseptoplasty can be performed safely, in most cases, in adolescent girls after the age of 16 years and in adolescent boys after the age of 17 years,” they conclude.
SOURCE: Archives of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery, December 2008.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Related Posts:
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Surgeons have replaced 80 percent of a woman’s face, transplanting bone, teeth, muscle and nerve in the first such operation in the United States. They said the woman suffered severe trauma that cost her an eye, much of her nose and her upper jaw and left her
Full Post: First U.S. patient gets face transplant
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Men who want to have a vasectomy reversed may soon be able to opt for a “mini-incision, no-scalpel” operation, according to a group of surgeons who have performed a number of successful vasectomy reversals using this approach. In vasectomy, the tube that carries sperm from the testes to the penis, the
Full Post: Mini-incision no-scalpel vasectomy reversal
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Will Boggs, MD NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - An enlarged prostate due to benign prostatic hyperplasia, or BPH, can be safely and effectively removed using a type of minimally invasive single-keyhole surgery, researchers report. The procedure, known as single-port transvesical enucleation of the prostate, or STEP, is “indicated in patients with large (greater than 80 to
Full Post: Large prostates removed with single-keyhole surgery
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHICAGO (Reuters) - A team of U.S. doctors have performed the first near-total face transplant in the United States, the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio said on Tuesday. The hospital did not release details but said in a statement it would hold a news conference on Wednesday. A French team led by Jean-Michel Dubernard of Lyon University was
Full Post: U.S. team performs near-total face transplant
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Otherwise healthy older children and adolescents who visit high-altitude destinations may develop acute mountain sickness in the first few days after they arrive, results of a study indicate. Their symptoms are apt to be relatively mild - mainly headache, nausea, fatigue, dizziness and trouble sleeping - and will resolve rapidly, the
Full Post: Children may suffer mild altitude sickness