Extracorporeal septoplasty-how we do it at marienhospital stuttgart germany.

Septoplasty is one of the most common surgery of ENT but even today the difficult septum still presents a great surgical problem. A severe septum deformity is usually due to an accident quite often in childhood. It is also seen in patients with malformation such as cleft lip and cleft palate deformity. It affects not only the nasal function, but also the aesthetic part of the nose. Severe septal deformities can not be corrected properly by the standard septoplasty techniques. Therefore in such cases an extracorporeal septoplasty is recommended. In this technique the whole septum is taken out, the bony and cartilaginous septum in one piece if possible, a new septal plate is reconstructed by different surgical techniques, followed by replantation and reconstruction of the cartilagenous dorsum. The first author kept on improving the safe septal fixation, rebuilding of cartilagenous dorsum and overall the extracorporeal septoplasty technique over the period of time and this technique with all its refinement can be recommended to all the surgeons dealing with this challenging noses.