Background: Nasal membranes may be injured by immune disease, infection, trauma, or cocaine. Destruction of the septum, vault and floor lining, external skin, upper lip, and adjacent structures follows.
Methods: Lining injuries caused by cocaine, Wegener granulomatosis, primary syphilis, leishmaniasis, septorhinoplasty, septal cancer excision and irradiation, corrosive inhalation, and foreign body and iatrogenic intubation injury were reviewed. The site and degree of injury were correlated with presentation and anatomical and functional abnormality.
Results: Damage may be isolated to the septum, creating a septal fistula with loss of dorsal and tip support and modest collapse of the dorsum and tip with columellar retraction, or the injury may extend onto the vaults and floor, leading to circumferential scar contracture and severe nasal shortening and lip retraction. Progressive disease, infection, or iatrogenic injury increases soft-tissue damage, causing external skin contraction or full-thickness necrosis.
Conclusions: Repair is determined by site, depth of injury, and clinical deformity--not cause. Lining necrosis and subsequent scar contraction, rather than structural compromise of the septum, are the primary causes of the severe deformity. If vault and floor lining injury is minimal, central support alone will restore dorsal and tip projection. Extensive loss requires release of scar contracture and replacement of the vault and floor lining with composite grafts, a microvascular flap, or hinge-over lining flaps, depending on the site and extent of injury. If the external skin is destroyed by scar or a full-thickness loss, a staged forehead flap will be required to resurface the nose.