Superextended Facelift: Our Experience With 3,580 Patients

Abstract

Our experience using the "Superextended" facelifting technique in 3580 female patients is presented herein. The technique is based on extended subcutaneous facial and neck skin undermining, extensive superficial musculoaponeurotic system (SMAS) dissection with low lateral freeing of the edges of the platysma muscle. The trimmed SMAS is fixed to the adjacent tissues, enabling the upward and lateral pulling effect of the facial structures. The neck contour is rebuilt by lateral pulling and fixing of the dissected lateral platysmal edges, along the entire neck, and meticulous supraplatysmal fat sculpturing. The skin is redraped over the newly built SMAS and platysmal skeleton, trimmed, and sutured without any tension. The concept of beauty in the eyes of the surgeon is expressed by adding other ancillary procedures during or shortly after the main procedure. Subcutaneous forehead lift using the hairline incision was performed in 70% of the female patients, concomitantly with the face-lifting procedure. Upper and lower blepharoplasties, chin implant, perioral dermabrasion, rhinoplasty, and fat grafting have been performed according to the surgeon's judgment and the patient's request. The objectives of an ideal facial surgery, which are youthful, natural, dynamic, attractive, feminine, and long-lasting results, can be achieved using this technique. Lack of major complications and an overall minor complications rate of only 4.4% makes this technique safe, reproducible, and reliable. This is one of the largest presented series of this procedure, performed by 1 surgeon. The presented cases demonstrate the results obtained using this technique.