Purpose: To assess the objective and subjective analysis of facet and infratip lobule in postoperative digital pictures of rhinoplasty patients and compare them with the people with good-looking noses. With the help of simple software that measures the brightness of the pixels, we investigated the relation between light reflections and patient satisfaction.
Methods: egardless of the technique, forty patients who underwent external open approach rhinoplasty were selected randomly. Twenty participants with a good-looking nose without operation history were selected as the control group. Digital Color Meter® in MacOS X® was used for measuring the brightness of the facets and infratip lobule. As a subjective outcome measure, the visual analog scale (VAS) was used and compared with brightness ratios.
Results: The mean brightness ratios and VAS of operated noses were statistically low from the control group. There was a significant positive correlation between brightness ratios and VAS in all groups.
Conclusion: Our study presents the results of a simple method of measuring the light reflections of the nose tip. Noses with a good aesthetic outcome have more symmetric and subtle facets and infratip lobule. This method was feasible, and its results were correlated with patients' aesthetic perceptions.
Level of evidence iv: This journal requires that authors assign a level of evidence to each article. For a full description of these Evidence-Based Medicine ratings, please refer to the Table of Contents or the online Instructions to Authors www.springer.com/00266 .
Keywords: Facets; Light reflections; Nasal tip; Rhinoplasty; Soft triangle.