A man whose face was destroyed by a dog has had it reconstructed using bone from his ribs and cartilage from his ear.
Andrew Koplove, 37, was left with a flat face with two small holes where his nose used to be after the animal viciously attacked him in 2017.
The medical equipment engineer from Massachusetts said the injuries were so bad he was ashamed to leave the house — and wore a bandage over his nose when he did to keep people from staring.
But four years after the attack, he underwent 14 operations to gradually reconstruct his nose – and give him back his confidence.
Mr Koplove said: ‘Before my nose reconstruction I lost a lot of myself. People looked at me or asked me what happened. It was extremely uncomfortable.”
Mr Koplove is pictured above before the surgery (left) and during the procedure (right) he underwent a total of fourteen operations over four years to rebuild his nose
‘(The operations) gave me my life back and the confidence to be myself again, go on dates, meet new people and be confident in everything I do.’
He added: ‘I didn’t really have any hope at that time in my life until I met (my plastic surgeon).
‘He gave me hope that I would achieve an excellent result without any permanent noticeable deformities. The team can really make miracles happen.’
Mr Koplove spent 18 months after the attack in San Francisco, which also damaged his ear, looking for plastic surgeons who could help.
However, many turned him down, warning that the risk of permanent deformity with total nose reconstruction was too great and that the risk of infection was high.
But doctors at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio eventually agreed to operate, rebuilding his nose in four stages.
In the first phase, they cut a large tear-shaped flap of skin from the upper right corner of his forehead and placed a piece of skin from the right thigh underneath.
To reconstruct his nose, doctors then cut off the skin covering the space where his old nose had been.
The skin flap was then lowered over this area and two holes were cut in it to form the new nostrils.
Andrew Koplove, now 37 and from Massachusetts, had his nose completely reconstructed after it was destroyed by a dog in 2017
He is pictured above again after the procedure with a new nose
For the first part of the surgery, they removed a flap of skin from the top of his forehead and inserted skin from his thigh underneath
They also rebuilt his nose using cartilage from his ear and bone from his ribs
They rebuilt part of his nose using cartilage from his ear and bone from his ribs
Doctors then lifted the flap – to expose the skin of the thigh – inserting cartilage from the ear and bone from the ribs to form the bony structure of the nose.
The flap was then reattached and contoured to form the shape of a typical nose.
The entire surgical process took approximately four years and fourteen operations.
When surgeons initially removed the cartilage from Mr Koplove’s ear, it became infected and spread to the entire nose.
They had to repeat the whole process a second time to rebuild his nose.
Dr. Patrick Byrne, the head and neck surgeon who performed the operations, said: ‘I have learned over the years to take these early complications very seriously and act quickly where possible.
‘Ultimately we had to create a second forehead flap to achieve an acceptable result.
He added: “Andrew is an inspiration. He faced adversity and dealt with adversity, all with consistent grace.”
Mr. Koplove has now moved to Ohio after his surgery and says he is happy to be able to cycle, kayak and snowboard again.
Data shows that nearly 220,000 rhinoplasties – or surgeries on the nose – are performed in the US every year.
Many are performed to help patients improve their breathing or achieve a more favorable appearance.
In less common cases, doctors also attempt to perform complete nose reconstructions on victims of accidents such as car accidents or dog attacks.
The average cost of a rhinoplasty is $6,324, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, but that will be much less than a nose reconstruction.