[Rhinophyma in rosacea. What does surgery achieve?].

Rhinophyma is a benign dermatological disease of the nose which affects primarily Caucasian men in their fifth decade of life. Its main characteristic is a slowly progressive hyperplasia of the sebaceous glands and the adjacent tissue with irregular thickening of the nasal skin and nodular deformation. It is defined as the end stage of acne rosacea. The main reasons for patients to seek medical help are cosmetic problems and functional impairments such as nasal airway obstruction or even difficulty in eating. Surgery is indisputably the treatment of choice for rhinophyma. This article gives an overview on the clinical and histopathologic findings of rhinophyma as well as the different treatment options with their pros and cons as described in literature.