Prominent Ear Correction

Interested in Prominent Ear Correction? Watch our video of the procedure being performed below.

Hello, my name’’s Adrian Richards. I’’m a Plastic Surgeon and the Surgical Director of Aurora Clinics based here in the United Kingdom.

Today I’’m going to be talking through an operation I did on this young lady with prominent ears on both sides. 

As you can see, the ear is of normal height but the antihelical fold hasn’t formed very well. In the video I demonstrate the antihelical fold. You can see that’’s the fold that should be created in the ear, and when it doesn’’t form, the ear becomes prominent.

I’ mark the antihelical fold with the patient asleep and the posterior line is where I’ insert my stitches. I’ also mark the skin on the back of the ear. The whole operation’ is done with an incision on the back of the ear with absolutely no incisions on the front of the ear.

Next stage is to insert local anaesthetic in the skin of the ear, some people choose to have this operation done purely under local anaesthetic, some people, as in this case, choose to have general anaesthetic to cover it.  But it’s important anyway to have local anaesthetic for post operative pain relief.

I remove the sliver of skin with electro-diathermy which controls the bleeding. I only remove a very small sliver of skin because it’’s not the skin that controls the shape of the ear, it’’s the underlying cartilage that we need to control.

I complete the skin excision with my electrocautery, and the next stage is to create a fascial flap. This is a flap I use to cover up the stitches.

You can see I’ remove a layer of tissue from the back of the cartilage, then use the flap that I’ created to cover the stitches. This is a very important stage. I place a needle through the cartilage on both sides, in four areas and this shows me exactly where I want to place my stitches. I use four non-absorbable stitches in the back of the ear, which controls the antihelix quite well.

The next stage is to sew the skin up, with an absorbable vicryl stitch which doesn’t need to be removed. The ear is nicely controlled and stable and the skin on the back is sewn up neatly.

The next stage is to just secure the ear with a tissue glue so I place that between the skin and the ear. The reason for this is to just hold the ear in place during the healing period.

I tend to put a bandage on, we put a bandage on nowadays for much less time than previously and typically I’’ll leave this on for three to four days.

So in the photos you can see before the operation, the patient has a poorly developed antihelical fold with a prominent ear on the right side, very similar on the left side as well. You can then see straight after the operation, then five days following the operation, and when I’’ve removed the dressing.

You can see with this posterior-only technique, very little bruising normally occurs and a very good result with minimum down time.

Thank you very much for watching this video, I hope you’’ve found it useful. If you’’d like to contact us to talk about any procedure, please do so by contacting us on 01324 578290 or email mailto:info@aurora-clinics.local.