Investigations of the influence of external nose deformities on nasal airflow

Abstract

Background: Abnormalities of the external shape of the nose are often felt as cosmetically disturbing. In many cases an additional hampering of the respiratory function of the nose is seen and causes pathological nasal airflow patterns. For the functional outcome of aesthetic-surgery of the nose, knowledge of nasal flow is essential. In the medical literature there are some discrepancies between the relationship of nasal shape and nasal flow. We investigated typical airflow patterns in different abnormalities of the external nose.

Methods: We performed fluid dynamic experiments on exact, anatomical nasal models and functional nasal models (so-called modified Mink boxes). We investigated the inspiratory flow pattern in nose-models with typical variations of the shape of the external nose.

Results and conclusions: There were typical airflow patterns for every external nasal abnormalities. The normal nose shows a disturbance of the streamlines over the entire nasal cavum. Under physiological flow velocities we find laminar and turbulent flow. The pathological variations of the nasal shape show mostly different airflow patterns and characteristics. The main reason for that is a deformed or anatomically false configurated inflow area (vestibulum, isthmus and anterior cavum). During rhinoplasty the reconstruction of the nasal inflow area has to be taken into account.