Nasal Septal Reconstruction

Fazil Apaydin, MD

The management of deviations of the nasal septum is like an adventure trip for all of the otolaryngologists. Starting from residency, it was one of the most mysterious and most difficult operations to learn, teach, and supervise. One of my teachers during my residency has told me: “The inside of the nose is like a bedroom. Only God knows what is happening in there.” We all should be grateful to the developments in endoscopic surgery and external rhinoplasty which both facilitated the surgeons to have a much better exposure and better education.

After learning to perform external rhinoplasty, I relearned to make nasal septal surgery. I am sure that for those who had a chance to add external rhinoplasty techniques into their surgical armamentarium, a similar scenario was put into play. It did not only allow me to have a much wider exposure but also more flexibility to correct all kinds of deviations. Advances in rhinoplasty within the last two decades helped us to use many additional techniques together with submucous resection and septoplasty. That is why I prefer to use the term “nasal septal reconstruction” to cover all the surgical techniques used to straighten the deviated nasal septum.

I feel honored and privileged to be the guest editor of this issue. I would like to thank the editors for giving me this opportunity. I also would like to express my gratitude to distinguished authors who contributed to this issue by their expertise on nasal septal reconstruction.