Reconstruction of a large nasal defect.

A 77-year-old man was referred for treatment of a biopsy-proven multirecurrence basal cell carcinoma on the dorsum of the nose. The lesion was removed and the resulting surgical defect involved the full thickness of the nasal skin leaving intact the underlying perichondrium and cartilages of the whole nasal dorsum including both sidewalls (Figure 1). The authors performed a reconstruction of a surgical defect greater than two-thirds of the nose using a single-staged bilateral Burow's wedge flap and a full-thickness skin graft from the glabella. All scars were camouflaged in the natural facial boundaries and the surgical reconstruction was performed in a single stage. The final nasal contour, symmetry and function were still good when the patient was seen 1 year after surgery.