Our Rhinoplasty Manuscript Has Been Accepted by Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery – Global Open (PRS Global Open)

We are pleased to announce that our rhinoplasty paper by A. Morello, MD, and H. Asano, MD,

“Preliminary Experience With Dual-Strut Tip Support Using Repurposed Cephalic Trim Cartilage in East Asian Rhinoplasty,”

has been officially accepted for publication in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery – Global Open (PRS Global Open).

In this paper, we describe our Dual-Strut technique, in which cephalic trim cartilage—cartilage that may otherwise be discarded during tip surgery—is repurposed to provide additional structural support to the nasal tip in East Asian rhinoplasty.

With the technique described in our paper, cartilage that might otherwise go unused after cephalic trimming is repurposed as two supporting struts. The concept is to take cartilage that was traditionally more likely to be discarded and reposition it where structural support is needed.

Rather than harvesting additional auricular or costal cartilage, the technique aims to make the best possible use of tissue already obtained during the operation while improving nasal tip support. It represents a further development and modification of existing rhinoplasty techniques.

There is another potential application that we were unable to discuss adequately in this paper because we did not have sufficient data, particularly in Caucasian female patients. I believe this cartilage may also be useful as a septo-columellar strut for rotating a downturned nasal tip upward, especially with Caucasian female patients that has a droopy nose tip. I would be very interested to see surgeons overseas read our paper and explore this potential application in their own patients.

As an independent clinic in Okinawa, submitting a manuscript to an international plastic surgery journal, peer reviewed, and ultimately accepted is a meaningful milestone.

This experience has reminded us that if we continue to examine our daily practice carefully, ask questions, refine our techniques, and put those ideas into a form that can be evaluated by others, it is possible to contribute to the international medical community from Okinawa as well.

We are honored that our work has been accepted by an international journal widely read in the field of plastic surgery. At the same time, we see this as an opportunity for our approach and direction to be evaluated by specialists outside our own practice.

We hope to continue building on this work—not only performing surgery, but also reviewing our results, improving our techniques, and sharing what we learn with the wider medical community.

Once the paper is officially published online, we will share it here again.

MSA Surgical Arts
Austin Morello, MD
Medical Director