Skin Incisions and Skin Closure

Abstract

The rhytidectomy procedure provides the surgeon with a powerful tool to rejuvenate the neck line, jaw line and midface of the aged patient. Ultimate satisfaction with the surgical result depends not only upon a natural, youthful and esthetic result, but also upon the camouflage of signs that would herald that surgery has been performed, namely, the incisions. Improperly designed and executed incisions, and their closure, result in many of the hallmarks of a “bad” facelift; visible, widened scars, loss of temporal hair, distortion of the posterior hairline, deformity of the earlobe, and an unnatural appearance of the tragus.