7-plasty technique for the surgical treatment of congenital longitudinal ear lobe cleft.

The ear lobe plays an important part in the aesthetic appearance of the auricle. The clefts of the ear lobe may vary in a wide range of severity from a simple notching to extensive tissue deficiency. We have operated on a congenital longitudinal ear lobe cleft using an alternative surgical method and obtained a favorable result. This method consists of a 7-plasty (or inverted L-plasty) that was performed to correct the deformity. The inner edges of the lobes were excised, and a medial extension incision was added. This helped to drop the medial part inferiorly like a back-cut so that the length of that lobe was increased. Eversion of the lateral lobe was also done, and the edges were approximated so that the angle between the extension incision and the excision line was increased to produce an obtuse angle between the 2 lines. We report an alternative method of reconstruction that can be used in longitudinal ear lobe clefts that offers a favorable result.