Are Patients with Mechanical Valves Contraindicated for Rhinoplasty?

If a patient is seeking augmentation rhinoplasty but has a mechanical aortic valve does this contraindicate them for surgery even if they are hemodyamically stable and take pro-active measures to reduce their INR down to 1.5 pre-op and take antibiotics prophylactically?

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candidate contraindication

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6 Doctor Answers | Asked by darrenwilson

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Ask your Cardialogist

This is a question that should be answered by your cardialogist or internist. You are on anticoagulants because of the risk or showing blood clots from your valve and rhinoplasty is a procedure that can get bloody at times. You would need to be off of the anticoagulants before and after surgery and your doctors would need to advise you on the risks.

Patients with mechanical valve can be candidates for rhinoplasty

Rhinoplasty is not contraindicated when a patient has a mechanical aortic valve in place. Patients will need to be cleared by their cardiologist and placed on antibiotics to prevent seeding of any bacteria onto the prosthetic heart valve. All aspirin and blood thinning products must be stopped so that patients are not anticoagulated prior to undergoing rhinoplasty surgery. This may put the patient at risk from a blood clotting perspective and that risk will have to be... more

Rhinoplasty For Patient With Mechanical Valves

Dear Darren, It is absolutely important to address the issue of your blood thinner and the INR not to mention your risk of valve infection. Therefore, a close collaboration between your cardiologist and your plastic surgeon is crucial to minimize the risks of your rhinoplasty as much as possible. So, if the aforementioned points were covered and your blood tests and examinations came out to be suitable for a surgery then things will be on the right track for a... more

Cosmetic surgery and mechanical heart valves

There are 2 issues in your case the first being the anticoagulation and the second the risk of infection to the heart valve. The first is addressed by temporarily switching to a low molecular weight heparin anticoagulation and the second by taking specific antibiotics around surgery. Your surgeon and cardiologist should work together on this. An INR of 1.5 is usually considered therapeutic but I would not recommend elective surgery with that level of INR. My response to your... more

Rhinoplasty in Patient with Mechanical Cardiac Valve

I would consider the procedure but only after consulting with the patient's cardiologist and those managing the INR. I'm less concerned about possible infection but certainly would prescribe antibiotics.

Richard W. Fleming, MD

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Beverly Hills Facial Plastic Surgeon

www.bevhills.com

Rhinoplasty and a mechanical heart valve

This is a very interesting question. I would not want to do the surgery with your INR prolonged. perhaps you should first check with your Cardiologist or Cardiac surgeon to see what other steps could be taken to adequately protect the valves and not increase your risk of post-op bleeding. Good luck.