Deviated Septum Before and After Septoplasty

Dr. Lamperti discusses septoplasty surgery including the incision used for surgery. He then shows video clips of a deviated septum taken before and after septoplasty surgery.

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Video transcript:

"Hello this is Dr. Thomas Lamperti, I'm a double board-certified facial plastic surgeon in Seattle. Today I would like to show you some video clips from before and after a septoplasty surgery. Here we are using a speculum to look inside of the left nostril and you can see where I've marked with a marking pen the planned incision line for the surgery; that allows us to enter and lift the skin lining off of the septum which is on our left. You can see very well on this patient how her septum is quite deviated. We'll enter here in a second with our camera and we'll enter even further back and we'll see where it worsens as we proceed further in the nose. After the initial deviation inferiorly you can see how posteriorly there is a large spur  that in fact contacts the patient's inferior turbinate. We'll try to advance where we can see that a little better. A telling finding is that it is quite difficult  for me to advance the telescope as it is quite narrow and more so than normal certainly. This patient's septal deviation is also significant for the fact that it occurs along the entire length of the septum; this creates even more resistance compared with if if were a smaller area that was equally deviated. So how much improvement can we make with septoplasty surgery?

I'll show you a video clip of this patient right after I completed the surgery. You can see the incision line on the left;  those are dissolvable sutures that will come out on their own. And we'll advance further back. You can see the improvement already although there is some swelling and oozing of blood, which is normal right after surgery. You can see the very posterior part, or back part of her nose, and in fact you can see into her nasopharynx. This had been an area that had been completely obstructed and if you recall at the beginning of surgery we weren't able to pass the camera past that area to see it at all. You can imagine how much improvement to her airflow and congestion will be seen after she heals."

Learn more about septoplasty surgery here.