What is functional septorhinoplasty?

Functional surgery emphasizes establishing proper nasal airflow and improving a patient's breathing. Surgically the goals often involve optimizing the external and internal nasal valves. Depending on a patient's exam, such surgery may require spreader grafts, alar batten grafts, lower lateral cartilage repositioning, caudal septum repositioning and various suture techniques, in addition to the standard septoplasty and inferior turbinate reduction. These maneuvers can be performed at the same time as making cosmetic alterations to the nose. Hope this helps!

Septorhinoplasty refers to surgery which changes the form of the nose.  Although cosmetic improvement is frequently the goal, in some cases functional improvement is the objective.  For some patients, simply correcting the septum and turbinates inside the nose is not enough to adequately improve nasal airflow.  In these cases, there is some problem related to the external nose, usually in the areas called the nasal valves, creating some narrowing which obstructs airflow.  Typically "functional rhinoplasty" refers to rhinoplasty with the main goal of improving airflow.  However, cosmetic improvement may be performed during the same operation.  In my practice, we use the term, "hybrid rhinoplasty", to describe such cases. The link below is to a video I made describing my approach to the nasal valves, the main aspect of functional rhinoplasty.