Young's operation is a surgery

Surgery

Surgery is an ancient medical specialty that uses operative manual and instrumental techniques on a patient to investigate and/or treat a pathological condition such as disease or injury, or to help improve bodily function or appearance.An act of performing surgery may be called a surgical...

 designed for the treatment of atrophic rhinitis

Atrophic rhinitis

Chronic atrophic rhinitis is a chronic inflammation of nose characterised by atrophy of nasal mucosa, including the glands, turbinate bones and the nerve elements supplying the nose. Chronic atrophic rhinitis may be primary and secondary...

, first described by Austen Young in 1967.

Procedure

The surgical procedure involves closure of the nasal cavity

Nasal cavity

The nasal cavity is a large air filled space above and behind the nose in the middle of the face.- Function :The nasal cavity conditions the air to be received by the other areas of the respiratory tract...

 affected with atrophic rhinitis by creating mucocutaneous flaps.
These flaps are sutured together in two layers: first the mucosal layer

Mucous membrane

The mucous membranes are linings of mostly endodermal origin, covered in epithelium, which are involved in absorption and secretion. They line cavities that are exposed to the external environment and internal organs...

, then the skin layer. The nasal cavity is kept closed for a period of 9 months; then an examination is done - if the crusts have disappeared, a revision surgery is performed and the nasal cavity is reopened. The theory behind this procedure is that the closed nasal cavity has time to heal.