Alar base reduction

What is Alar base?

Alar base is area of nose that consists nostrils from nasal tip to both sides of nose

What is Alar base reduction?

If you have wide nasal alar and nostril, your nose may look flat, and one of the ways to make your nose look sophisticated is nasal alar base reduction.

Standard for a wide alar is based on the area where straight line down from inner canthus (inner eye angle) meets outside of nasal alar.

If the alar exceeds the line, you may say that you have a wide alar.

Also, when seen from the side, if your nasal bridge and alar are not balanced, revealing your nostrils due to low nasal bridge or hiding nasal columella due to low nasal alar.

In this case, Alar base reduction can correct the imbalance.

This is only textbook and the decision of having alar base reduction must be based on consultation with patients.

Alar base reduction surgery method

There are two methods of alar base reduction.

1) Incision technique

Incision is to remove unnecessary skin and suture remaining skin.

This is effective when alar is too wide or skin is too thick. However, if skin is removed insufficiently, it can be solved by resecting  more skin, but if skin is removed excessively, its restoration is difficult.

Also, incision area is left with a scar and know-how is necessary to minimize scarring.

2) Non-incision technique (Suturing technique)

If nostril is not too big or wide, incision may make nostril too small, making patient to breath more difficult.

In such cases, suture technique that ties nasal columella and alar together is more recommended rather than incision technique.

If nasal columella is comparatively wide, such technique would be preferable.

It has advantage in that it doesn’t leave a scar, but its result is less dramatic when you have wide alar or thick skin.

These are all basic information. Every patient has different nasal shape and condition, so rather than applying single technique to everyone, it is crucial to find an appropriate method for you.