What are the side effects of costal cartilage removal?

Among modern cosmetic surgery techniques, a very popular procedure is to harvest cartilage to supplement other defective parts. This surgery often involves taking some cartilage from people's ribs to repair the ear. And there will be no rejection reaction, it is very safe, but taking rib cartilage is a relatively risky operation after all, which can easily cause some discomfort to the body. Let's take a look at the sequelae of taking rib cartilage.

The donor sites for cartilage transplantation include ear cartilage, nasal septum cartilage and rib cartilage. The currently popular comprehensive rhinoplasty often uses cartilage from these areas as grafts to raise or lengthen the nose. The most abundant donor area for cartilage is the rib cartilage, so the most commonly used donor area for ear reconstruction is the chest.

The costal cartilages are located at the front of the thorax. The human thorax is composed of the spine at the back, the sternum in the front and 12 pairs of ribs on both sides. The thorax protects internal organs such as the heart, lungs and liver. While protecting the internal organs, the ribs expand or relax the thorax through the movement of the intercostal muscles, thereby forming positive and negative pressures in the thorax, causing the lungs to expand and contract to complete the breathing movement.

Children will feel a little pain after the costal cartilage is removed, but they will be able to go out and play 2 to 3 days after the operation. The pain for adults will be more severe than for children, and the recovery time will be a little longer, but it is not a big problem. Usually, they can do heavy physical labor three months after the operation.

The costal cartilage will not regenerate after being removed, and will be partially replaced by fibrous connective tissue, similar to the scar tissue on the skin, which is not as strong as normal costal cartilage.

Some doctors put the remaining cartilage fragments back into the area where the cartilage was removed after carving the ear stent in an attempt to help the cartilage regenerate. However, our animal experiments have confirmed that while doing so can indeed increase local strength, it does not promote cartilage regeneration.

In short, although costal cartilage removal has some effects on the human body, the impact is limited.

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