Assessment of the Need for Cosmetic Rhinoplasty in A Nigerian Population

Background: Many individuals are affected psychologically either when they perceive a real or imagined deviation of any part of their face or when they desire the morphology of such parts to be like others. The purposes of our study were to determine tribal and sexual dimorphism of nasal indices of subjects in Nigerian population and to assess the satisfaction with the morphology of their nostrils.
Method: Two hundred subjects were recruited from the four tribes. Subjects were taken by random collection. Direct measurement technique was employed using a tape. Nasal height was measured from the frontonasal suture superiorly to the nasal sill inferiorly. The nasal width (maximum breadth of the nose) was measured between the two lateral crura of the ala base. All measurements were taken with the subject sitting in a chair in a relaxed condition and the head in a neutral anatomical position.
Result: There was a sexual dimorphism between the male and female whereby the female has a smaller nose than the male when compared. There were also differences in the nasal indices amongst the four groups, 95% were satisfied with their nose and 4.5% were not satisfied with their nose (5 females and 4 males).
Conclusion: Few subjects were not very satisfied with the form of their nostril and would have preferred the long, narrower and elevated nostrils but they did not desire cosmetic surgery.