Assessing Nasal Soft-Tissue Envelope Thickness for Rhinoplasty: Normative Data and a Predictive Algorithm.

Importance: Preoperative assessment of nasal soft-tissue envelope (STE) thickness is an important component of rhinoplasty that presently lacks validated tools.

Objective: To measure and assess the distribution of nasal STE thickness in a large patient population and to determine if facial plastic surgery clinicians can predict nasal STE thickness based on visual examination of the nose.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This retrospective review and prospective assessment of 190 adult patients by 4 expert raters was conducted at an academic tertiary referral center.