Autogenous grafts are preferable to synthetic materials in rhinoplasty.
Over the past 15 years, grafts have been used with increasing frequency during rhinoplasty procedures as the transition has been made from reductive rhinoplasty to augmentation or restructuring rhinoplasty. There are a number of grafting materials available, including autogenous materials (bone, cartilage), homograft materials (rib cartilage, dermis), and a wide variety of synthetic or alloplastic materials. With regard to the autogenous materials, cartilage has been the mainstay for augmentation in rhinoplasty. Bone is used infrequently because it often yields unsatisfactory results in the aesthetic appearance of the nose, and has problems with graft resorption.1 I will therefore not discuss bone herein. This article focuses on the differences between autogenous cartilage implants and synthetic materials, in particular expanded PTFE (Gore-tex; WL Gore & Associates Inc, Flagstaff, Ariz).