Liposuction with facelift surgery.

During the past six years, the procedure now known as liposuction has revolutionized many aspects of cosmetic surgery, including the facelift, and is now finding applicability in other fields of medicine. The profound psychological benefits afforded to persons by facelifting have become increasingly available through the rapid public acceptance of outpatient surgery for this procedure. The latter has been assisted in no small way by the ancillary use of liposuction for facelifting, since liposuction has certainly made the facelift procedure easier and safer. Prior to the advent of liposuction, there were a number of reports in the medical literature about significant complication rates from facelifting, ranging in frequency from 1 to 8%. These included postoperative hematomas, infection, skin slough, significant hair loss, and nerve injury. The author has experienced none of these complications using adjunctive liposuction in over 100 facelifts. Liposuction has allowed treatment of facial areas previously almost unapproachable in facelifting, except perhaps by the most experienced hands. It has permitted the use of facial fat grafting, a further adjunct to the facelift procedure. Liposuction speeds the facelift procedure, lessening operator fatigue while shortening surgical and anesthesia time for the patient. These factors alone would provoke the rapid adoption of liposuction for facelifting, but its use is further solidified by the excellent results possible without resorting to the various complex and sometimes dangerous platysma-splitting and SMAS-undermining procedures often advocated in the past decade. Documentation of such results is provided by Figures 12 through 17. Thus, it seems reasonable to state that liposuction has had a tremendous and lasting impact on the surgical rejuvenation of the face and neck, whether used alone or in conjunction with facelift. It is in facelifting that the nuances and full potential of liposuction come to the fore.