Otoplasty (ear surgery)

Surgery

With very young children the surgeon will choose complete anaesthesia and with older children and adults, local anaesthesia combined with light intravenous anaesthesia. The operation lasts for an hour. The incision is performed behind the ear in order to bring forth the cartilage. Afterwards, by means of non-resorbable stitches, the cartilage is reshaped, ligatured and brought closer to the head. After the staunching of blood the surgeon goes on to stitch up the tegument.

Post-surgery hospitalisation

The surgery can be done on an ambulatory basis or with a one day hospitalisation. The patients should wear a compressive bandage for a week, after which the wear of a ribbon round the head for another month. The stitches will be removed after a 7 or 8 days as this can be easily done by the patient's family GP.

Post-surgery recovery

The children may go back to kindergarten or school after a week (but under supervision during the first month) and the adults may go back to work after 2 or 3 days.

Conclusions

The results of this operation turn out very good but you should not expect the operated on ears to look perfectly symmetrical, which is also unnatural for the ears.