A new nose appears to grow well on Lian's forehead, and is ready to replace the damaged nose after another operation. Photo: CFP

A surgeon in China says he has constructed an extra nose out of a man's rib cartilage and implanted it under the skin of his forehead to prepare for a transplant in probably the first operation of its kind.

Surgeon Guo Zhihui at a hospital in Fujian Province spent nine months cultivating the graft for a 22-year-old man, surnamed Lian, whose nose was damaged.

The striking images of the implant - with the nostril section facing diagonally upward on the left side of the man's forehead - drew widespread publicity this week. Guo plans to cut the nose from the forehead while leaving a section of skin still connected, and then rotate and graft it into position in a later operation.

The patient lost part of his nose in an accident in 2012 and did not immediately have any reconstruction surgery because he couldn't afford it. An infection later ate away much of his nose cartilage, he said.

Guo said his team examined what remained of the nose and concluded there would be little chance of viably grafting cartilage there, instead building the nose on the forehead.

When the new nose is rotated into position and grafted, it will at first have its own blood supply from links to the forehead, before developing new blood vessels.