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 Five years after getting a facelift followed by lip augmentation
using leftover tissue, patients still had significantly fuller lips
than they did prior to the procedure, though the results weren’t as
pronounced as they were at three months or one year, the study
found.
“This technique offers patients undergoing a facelift a way to use
their own tissue which would otherwise normally be discarded to
plump the lips with minimal risk for complications,” said lead study
author Dr. Matthew Richardson, a private practice plastic surgeon at
Texas Facial Aesthetics in Frisco, Texas.
It isn’t for everyone.
“Patients who have previously had a facelift are usually not
candidates for this procedure because the tissue that is used for
the lip augmentation is often removed at the time of the first
facelift operation,” Richardson added by email.
Still, appearance tweaks like this are gaining in popularity.
Last year there were 15.9 million surgical and minimally invasive
cosmetic procedures done in the U.S. alone, a 2 percent increase
from the previous year and more than double the number from 2000,
according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons.
For the current study, researchers focused on a procedure that
plumps up the lips with tissue taken from what’s known as the
superficial musculoaponeurotic system (SMAS), a layer of tissues
under the skin of the face.
To assess the long-term safety and effectiveness of this cosmetic
procedure, researchers followed 60 people for about five years,
examining photos to see how plump lips stayed over time and tracking
complications.
Two of the patients had complications that required additional
treatment, one to relieve swelling and the other for nodule removal,
researchers report in JAMA Facial Plastic Surgery.
Both the upper and lower lips were fuller at three months, one year
and five years compared to before the patients got facelifts and lip
augmentation, based on an analysis of photos from a subset of 26
participants.
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One limitation of the study is that researchers lacked a full set of
images for more than half of the participants because some people
were missing at least one picture and others were excluded because
they'd gotten additional cosmetic lip procedures during the study,
the authors note.
It also may be unaffordable for some patients.
Absent a traumatic injury requiring facial reconstruction, this type
of procedure wouldn’t typically be covered by insurance, requiring
patients to pay somewhere in the neighborhood of $5,000 to $8,000
entirely out of pocket, said Dr. Andrew Jacono, director of The New
York Center for Facial Plastic and Laser Surgery.
Even so, the study should reassure patients who choose this
procedure that it can be done safely and have lasting effects,
Jacono, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by email.
“While we knew that SMAS lip augmentation delivered consistent
outcomes, the study speaks to the longevity of the results,” Jacono
said. “This is the first time the procedure has been proven to last
for at least five years with little to no complications.”
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2dqEtPv JAMA Facial Plastic Surgery, online
September 29, 2016.
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