Face Region Research Articles

The influence of acute alcohol intoxication and hair visibility on delayed face recall

ABSTRACT Many witnesses are intoxicated at crime scenes, yet little is known of their ability to accurately describe perpetrators to police. We therefore explored the impact of alcohol on delayed verbal face recall across two experiments. Participants were administered an alcoholic or non-alcoholic beverage prior to viewing either one or two unfamiliar female faces, which they described from memory the following day while in a sober state. Each to-be-remembered model had long hair worn either loose (i.e., visible), or tied behind the head (i.e., concealed). Testing the hypothesis that alcohol narrows the focus of attention to the external (hairstyle) region of faces, we expected intoxicated participants to have poorer memory of internal face features (eyes, nose, mouth) than sober controls for stimulus faces with visibly long hair. Results revealed poorer recall accuracy for internal face details following alcohol consumption (Exp. 2), but the effect was uninfluenced by hairstyle. Findings are therefore consistent with the more general view that alcohol is associated with a bias to the external (hairstyle) region of faces during face learning, irrespective of hair visibility.

Is More Always Better? - A Randomized Comparative Clinical Trial About the Impact of Polidyoxanone Threads Quantity for Facial Lifting

Abstract Background Minimally invasive aesthetic procedures, such as the use of polydioxanone (PDO) threads, are increasingly popular for facial rejuvenation. Objectives This study investigates the impact of the number of PDO threads on tissue displacement, volume changes, and patient satisfaction. Methods This randomized controlled trial involved 22 subjects seeking facial lifting using PDO threads. Participants were divided into two groups: G1 with 3 threads per hemiface and G2 with 6 threads per hemiface. 3D stereophotogrammetry was used to evaluate volumetric changes and tissue displacement at baseline, 20-, and 60-days post-treatment. Patient satisfaction was assessed using the Global Aesthetic Improvement Scale (GAIS). Results Significant volumetric changes were observed over time in both midface and lower face regions (p<0.05), but no significant intergroup differences were found (p>0.6). Tissue displacement showed statistical significance over time (p=0.039) but not between groups (p=0.821). GAIS scores did not differ significantly between groups or between patients and specialists. Adverse events were minor and transient, primarily involving pain. Conclusions The number of PDO threads used did not significantly influence sustained lifting outcomes or patient satisfaction. Initial improvements in volume and tissue displacement diminished by 60 days, suggesting that additional threads do not enhance long-term efficacy. Further studies with longer follow-up are needed to better understand collagen stimulation's potential role in lasting effects.

Area‐Specific Assessment of Stratum Corneum Hydration and Transepidermal Water Loss in Pediatric Patients With Atopic Dermatitis

SCORring atopic dermatitis (SCORAD) is widely used to assess the severity of atopic eczema, but score systems based on the entire body may be limited in effective monitoring and intervention. It is crucial to monitor moisture levels in each affected body part, but empirical research is still lacking. The objective of this study was to analyze the levels of stratum corneum hydration (SCH) and transepidermal water loss (TEWL) in atopic dermatitis (AD) patients, focusing on the presence and location of atopic lesions at different body sites. The levels of TEWL and SCH were measured using the AF200 AquaFlux and the Corneometer, respectively, at 15 body sites. 98 children under the age of 10 were measured, including 83 AD patients and 15 in the control group. Patients were also assessed with SCORAD and for the presence of atopic lesions at each body site. 58.7% of AD patients had lesions in the antecubital fossa and popliteal fossa, with corresponding low SCH levels and high TEWL in the upper body. The differences in TEWL between the control group and AD patients were confirmed significant in the neck and antecubital fossa regions, while differences in SCH were identified in the face, antecubital fossa, and popliteal fossa regions. A higher TEWL was found among AD patients with atopic lesions in the face and ankle. This study suggests that continuous monitoring of SCH and TEWL levels at specific body sites can provide insights into identifying vulnerable body areas to AD and supplement the SCORAD system for more effective clinical intervention and prevention strategies.

Gaze Patterns During Evaluation of Facial Attractiveness: An Eye‐Tracking Investigation

BackgroundObjective, controlled eye‐tracking measurement of gaze patterns during layperson evaluation of facial attractiveness is currently lacking.ObjectivesTo objectively investigate (1) where on the face laypeople direct their attention when assessing attractiveness compared with a control group, and (2) whether increased fixation on certain facial regions is associated with high attractiveness ratings.MethodsLay observers viewed a cohort of 40 faces with a diverse age, sex, and racial distribution. Observers were either allowed to free‐gaze without a specific task or rate facial attractiveness for 10 seconds per face while their gaze was recorded by an eye‐tracking system.ResultsForty‐seven observers assessed facial attractiveness (mean age 35.1 years (range 21–76), 62% female) and 57 observers free‐gazed at the facial photos without a specific task (mean age 35.5 years (range 22–66), 54% female). Preliminary analysis showed that sex of both the face and observer substantially influence gaze‐attractiveness associations (p < 0.05). Mixed effects analysis suggests that when males assessed female facial attractiveness, increased fixation time at the mouth correlated most strongly with high attractiveness (p = 0.001), whereas when females assessed male faces, increased fixation at the eyes (p < 0.001) and hair (p = 0.002) were most strongly associated with high ratings of attractiveness.ConclusionsIncreased gaze at the mouth in females and eyes and hair in males is associated with significantly higher ratings of attractiveness by observers of the opposite sex. Practitioners may want to pay special attention to these areas when designing an evidence‐based aesthetic treatment plan.Level of EvidenceNA Laryngoscope, 2024

Exploring the Impact of Nature-Based Solutions for Hydrological Extremes Mitigation in Small Mixed Urban-Forest Catchment

Many regions in Europe face increasing issues with flooding and droughts due to changing rainfall patterns caused by climate change. For example, higher rainfall intensities increase urban flooding. Nature-based solutions (NbS) are suggested as a key mitigation strategy for floods. This study aims to address and mitigate the challenges faced in Tivoli natural park in Ljubljana regarding high peak discharges and low-flow issues in the creek entering the sewer system. The study involves setting up, calibrating and validating a Hydrologic Engineering Centre–Hydrologic Modelling System (HEC-HMS) model using available data. This study analyses NbS, such as small ponds, green roofs and permeable paving, to reduce peak discharge. Runoff was reduced by an average of 32.4% with all NbS implemented and peak discharge by 20 L/s. Permeable parking performed best, with an average runoff reduction of 6.4%, compared to 4.8% for permeable streets and 5.9% for green roofs. The ponds reduced peak discharge, although their effectiveness varied between rainfall events. Rainfall events with higher volumes and durations tended to overwhelm the proposed solutions, reducing their effectiveness. The ability of HEC-HMS to model NbS is also discussed. The curve number (CN) parameter and impervious % alterations to simulate NbS provided quantitative data on changes in runoff and discharge.

Overcoming occlusions in complex environments to achieve robust perception of human emotions

Abstract To effectively address the emotional well-being of elderly individuals living alone using of home care robotic systems, it is essential to possess the ability to precisely identify facial expressions within complex domestic settings. Facial expression recognition (FER) in complex environments faces significant challenges due to factors such as facial occlusions. To address this challenge, this paper proposes a method called the Dual-Branch Attention and Multi-Scale Feature Fusion Network (DAMFF-Net). First, we perform feature extraction on facial images and input the resulting feature maps into an improved dual-branch attention fusion module (DBAF) to capture long-range dependencies between different facial regions. Simultaneously, using the residual multi-scale module that we designed, we obtain fine-grained multi-scale features to ensure that both preceding and subsequent feature subsets contain rich scale information. Next, we globally fuse the feature maps from the feature extraction stage with those from the residual multi-scale module to enhance facial expression recognition accuracy in cases where certain facial feature regions are occluded. Finally, we employ decision-level fusion in order to deal with the categorization findings. Experiments were conducted on the RAF-DB, CK+ and AffectNet-7 datasets, and comparative results indicated that the proposed method achieved a respective enhancement of 5.79%, 6.68% and 5.86% in facial expression recognition accuracy.

Assessment of Facial Pain After Internal Carotid Artery Stenting: The Role of External Carotid Artery Overstenting.

Background: The external carotid artery (ECA) supplies blood to various facial and neck regions and may contribute to collateral cerebral perfusion. With the rise in carotid artery stenting (CAS) as a treatment for carotid stenosis, ECA overstenting has become a common procedure feature. This study aimed to assess the incidence, characteristics, and duration of facial pain following CAS, hypothesizing that ECA overstenting may contribute to facial pain. Materials and Methods: This prospective study included 55 patients treated with CAS for internal carotid artery (ICA) stenosis at a single center. Patients' facial pain was evaluated using a numeric rating scale (NRS) before, immediately after, and 24 h post-CAS. Patient data, including demographics, comorbidities, and procedural details, were analyzed to assess the relationship between ICA stenosis degree, ECA diameter changes, and facial pain incidence. Results: CAS was associated with intraoperative facial pain in 27.27% of patients, with 7.28% reporting residual pain 24 h post-procedure. Pain occurrence was significantly higher in patients with lower ICA stenosis (p = 0.04). The median ECA diameter decreased from 4.11 mm to 3.16 mm (p < 0.001) after CAS, with ECA overstenting observed in 96.4% of cases. No significant relationship was found between pain severity and stent width or length. Conclusions: This study highlights that CAS significantly decreases the diameter of ECA. Additionally, ECA overstenting might be associated with perioperative and postoperative facial pain, emphasizing the need for careful monitoring of ECA patency following CAS.

Listen to Your Face: A Face Authentication Scheme Based on Acoustic Signals

Face authentication (FA) schemes are widely adopted in smart homes nowadays. However, existing FA systems for smart appliances are commonly camera-based and hence experience performance degradation in poor illumination conditions. Mainstream FA systems based on radio frequency require dedicated hardware that is inaccessible to many appliances. In this paper, we propose an acoustic signals-based FA scheme that extracts acoustic signal features associated with facial 3D geometries to achieve FA named SoundFace . This scheme can be widely deployed on most appliances in home environments. We propose a novel two-stage locating approach based on acoustic sensing to capture the signal variation of the user’s face and separate the face region echoes from multipath interferences in the distance dimension. To obtain distinguishable facial features, we design a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN)-based feature extractor. In addition, the acoustic signal is highly susceptible to different changes in practical authentication. To overcome it, we utilize a transfer learning technique with little training overhead to enable SoundFace resilient to various authentication changes. Extensive evaluations demonstrate that SoundFace achieves an average true authentication rate of over 96.2% and an equal error rate of 4.2%, and it is robust to various real-world settings.

Face Forgery Detection Using Deep Learning

The rising occurrence of forged content poses a threat to the authenticity of multimedia. This research suggests a simplified hybrid architecture as an effective method for detecting face forgeries. The framework includes CNN for dependable classification, EfficientNet for robust feature extraction, and MTCNN for precise face detection. MTCNN ensures that high-quality input is produced for feature extraction by accurately localizing facial regions. The CNN classifier utilizes the extracted features in order to distinguish between authentic and manipulated content, and EfficientNet, which has become famous for its good performance and computational efficiency, is able to capture face patterns at a subtle level. Transfer learning enhances the adaptability of the model toward new manipulation techniques because it pre- trains on a large-scale dataset before fine-tuning on data specifically related to deepfakes. Key Words: Deep Learning, Deepfakes, Face Forgery, Multimedia forensics, CNN.

Cross-dataset micro-expression identification based on facial ROIs contribution quantification

Abstract In this work, we propose a novel cross-dataset micro-expression identification method based on facial regions of interest contribution quantification, where the training samples are from the source dataset and the test samples are from the target dataset. Specifically, a micro-expression video clip (i.e., a sample) is first sampled at intervals to capture an image sequence consisting of multiple consecutive video frames. Then, locate and crop the facial area in the image frame, and perform facial landmark detection on the cropped area. Next calculate the optical-flow field of the image sequence, and extract the improved Main Directional Mean Optical-flow feature. Finally, the learned group sparse model is used as the classifier to predict the label information of the unmarked target samples, so as to complete the category recognition of micro-expressions. Extensive cross-dataset comparative experiments on four spontaneous micro-expression datasets, CASME, CASME II, SMIC-HS, and SAMM, show that the recognition strategy proposed in this work is effective. Compared with several other advanced recognition methods, our method has better cross-dataset recognition performance, not only the classification accuracy is higher, but also the classification stability is better when faced with different target datasets and different micro-expression categories. It can be applied in many fields such as clinical diagnosis, interrogation, negotiation, and national security.

Diamond Technique: A Triple Treatment for Neck and Décolletage Rejuvenation.

In the pursuit of integral beauty and a harmonious overall appearance, individuals are increasingly seeking cosmetic treatments for both facial and extrafacial regions. Among these areas, the neck and décolleté have become focal points for care due to their visibility and susceptibility to postsurgical scarring and dyschromia compared with the face. Environmental stressors and sun exposure contribute to aging signs in these areas, prompting a demand for effective, minimally invasive procedures with reduced downtime and minimal risks. Biostimulators, hyaluronic acid, laser therapy, microfocused ultrasound and neurotoxins have become key players in addressing these concerns. This manuscript introduces the Diamond technique, which uses a diamond-shaped acetate device to perform a minimally invasive protocol combining calcium hydroxyapatite, hyaluronic acid, and incobotulinumtoxinA for neck and décolleté rejuvenation. The technique involves two steps: solution preparation and device-guided injections. The diamond-shaped device was developed to guide the injections, enhancing precision and reproducibility and facilitating medical training. The device's strategic markings aid in solution application, ensuring a multidimensional approach to rejuvenation. Four female patients, aged between 55 and 63 years were used to demonstrate the technique, with two categorized as grade II and two as grade III according to the Merz scale of neck laxity at rest. The four examples demonstrate improvements in skin laxity, wrinkles, and overall skin quality. Two participants reported "good results," and two reported results "beyond expectations." The Diamond technique's potential lies in its ability to provide predictable outcomes, individualized treatments, and patient satisfaction. While the authors assert the technique's safety and efficacy, the need for controlled studies is crucial. Rigorous, long-term studies are warranted to validate its effectiveness and safety compared with the existing approaches.

Pattern and Management of Maxillofacial Trauma in Selected Trauma Units Across Africa: A Prospective Pilot Study.

Trauma to the facial region could lead to considerable social, psychological and economic consequences. With the African region being a major contributor to global trauma events, we set out to describe the epidemiology and management of maxillofacial trauma in selected trauma units across Africa. This was a six-month prospective multicentre study carried out during March-September 2021.The study involved five major hospitals across the African continent. The patterns of maxillofacial injuries were recorded and patients managed according to local standardized operating protocols. Treatment delays and postoperative complications were recorded at review. Data analysis included descriptive statistics and regression analysis (p < 0.05). PFindings.A total of 195 patients were included in the study. The age range of patients was 1-87years, with a mean age of 32.4 (SD = ± 16.1). The study population consisted of 43 (22.1%) females, accounting for a Male:Female ratio of 3.5:1. Lacerations were the most common soft tissue injuries observed, while the prevalence of upper-, mid-, and lower- third fractures were 5.1%, 33.8%, and 19.5% respectively. There was loss of consciousness in 27.2%. Road crashes were the predominant aetiology of injuries, while 33.8% had concomitant injuries. About 38.3% of participants experienced treatment delays. Compared to employed patients, unemployed patients had significantly higher odds of experiencing treatment delays (OR = 3.76; 95%CI: 1.62 - 8.73). With the overwhelming contribution of road crashes, measures to ensure road safety are needed to significantly reduce maxillofacial injuries in the African region, while also reducing socioeconomic inequality to timely treatment.

Optimal facial regions for remote heart rate measurement during physical and cognitive activities

Remote photoplethysmography (rPPG) has gained prominence as a non-contact and real-time technology for heart rate monitoring. A critical factor in rPPG’s accuracy is the selection of regions of interest (ROI), as it can significantly influence prediction outcomes. Most studies typically use the forehead and cheeks as ROIs, but little research has explored other facial regions or how stable these ROIs are during physical movement and cognitive tasks. In this study, we analyzed 28 facial regions based on anatomical definitions using two mixed datasets derived from three public databases: LGI-PPGI, UBFC-rPPG, and UBFC-Phys. We applied rPPG algorithms such as orthogonal matrix image transformation (OMIT), plane-orthogonal-to-skin (POS), chrominance-based (CHROM), and local group invariance (LGI). Our findings show that the glabella, medial forehead, lateral forehead, malars, and upper nasal dorsum consistently perform well, with the glabella achieving the highest overall evaluation score. These results offer valuable insights for advancing remote heart rate monitoring technologies.

Preparation and Rheological Evaluation of Thiol-Maleimide/Thiol-Thiol Double Self-Crosslinking Hyaluronic Acid-Based Hydrogels as Dermal Fillers for Aesthetic Medicine.

This study presents the development of thiol-maleimide/thiol-thiol double self-crosslinking hyaluronic acid-based (dscHA) hydrogels for use as dermal fillers. Hyaluronic acid with varying degrees of maleimide substitution (10%, 20%, and 30%) was synthesized and characterized, and dscHA hydrogels were fabricated using two molecular weights of four-arm polyethylene glycol (PEG10K/20K)-thiol as crosslinkers. The six resulting dscHA hydrogels demonstrated solid-like behavior with distinct physical and rheological properties. SEM analysis revealed a decrease in porosity with higher crosslinker MW and maleimide substitution. The swelling ratios of the six hydrogels reached equilibrium at approximately 1 h and ranged from 20% to 35%, indicating relatively low swelling. Degradation rates decreased with increasing maleimide substitution, while crosslinker MW had little effect. Higher maleimide substitution also required greater injection force. Elastic modulus (G') in the linear viscoelastic region increased with maleimide substitution and crosslinker MW, indicating enhanced firmness. All hydrogels displayed similar creep-recovery behavior, showing instantaneous deformation under constant stress. Alternate-step strain tests indicated that all six dscHA hydrogels could maintain elasticity, allowing them to integrate with the surrounding tissue via viscous deformation caused by the stress exerted by changes in facial expression. Ultimately, the connection between the clinical performance of the obtained dscHA hydrogels used as dermal filler and their physicochemical and rheological properties was discussed to aid clinicians in the selection of the most appropriate hydrogel for facial rejuvenation. While these findings are promising, further studies are required to assess irritation, toxicity, and in vivo degradation before clinical use. Overall, it was concluded that all six dscHA hydrogels show promise as dermal fillers for various facial regions.

Temporal–spatial correlation and graph attention-guided network for micro-expression recognition in English learning livestreams

Micro-expressions, fleeting facial movements lasting 1/25 to 1/3 of a second, offer crucial insights into genuine emotions, particularly valuable in online education settings. The rapid growth of English learning livestreams has heightened the need for accurate, real-time micro-expression recognition to enhance learner engagement and instructional effectiveness. However, existing methods need help with the subtle nature of these expressions, especially in dynamic, low-resolution streaming environments. This paper presents TSG–MER–ELL, a novel end-to-end network for micro-expression recognition in English learning livestreams, integrating temporal–spatial correlation and graph attention mechanisms. The framework addresses the unique challenges of real-time emotion analysis in online language education, where subtle facial cues are crucial in understanding learner engagement and comprehension. The temporal–spatial correlation module employs action units with spatio-temporal graph convolution to aggregate features from diverse facial regions, while transformer encoders construct long-range correlations. The graph attention module builds upon local facial areas to guide self-attention computations, yielding precise local correlation features. These global and local features are fused for the final micro-expression classification. We introduce an adaptive loss function that balances accuracy, efficiency, and relevance to linguistic context. Extensive experiments on SMIC, CASME II, and SAMM datasets, adapted for English learning scenarios, demonstrate TSG–MER–ELL’s superior performance over ten state-of-the-art baselines. The TSG–MER–ELL framework achieves top UF1 and UAR scores across all datasets, significantly improving recognition speed and accuracy. Ablation studies and visualizations of temporal–spatial features and graph attention weights provide insights into the framework’s effectiveness in capturing subtle emotional cues. TSG–MER–ELL’s robust performance in varied online learning conditions highlights its potential to enhance engagement, personalize instruction, and improve overall outcomes in virtual English language education.

Advancement Flap in Paralateronasal Defect Reconstruction.

Various techniques for local flap reconstructions of the facial region have been documented in the literature, including the advancement flap. This flap is one of the most versatile options for reconstructing various skin defects across different areas of the body. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the safety and effectiveness of the advancement flap for reconstructing the paralateronasal region after the excision of skin cancer. The following article presents a retrospective case series of 6 patients in whom the advancement flap was used to reconstruct skin defects resulting from malignant tumor resections in the paralateronasal region. No restrictions were collected regarding etiology, location, size, age, sex, or any other patient factors. The recruited patients were treated in the Maxillofacial Surgery Unit of Floraspe Renzetti Hospital of Lanciano, and the study was conducted in collaboration with Sapienza University of Rome, from February 2023 to February 2024. All the flaps settled with no complications, and all the patients were FOD (free of disease) 6 months after surgery. So, in accordance with the literature, the advancement flap turns out to be a rapid and reliable option that could be easily applied for cutaneous defects of the face even for the oldest and/or emaciated patient.

Outcomes of Reconstructing Large Oncosurgical Defects of the Lateral Face in Older Cutaneous Cancer Patients Using Cervicofacial and Cervicothoracic Flaps.

Older patients with cutaneous cancer often have comorbidities. Tumor resection and defect reconstruction in these patients are challenging. To evaluate the safety and feasibility of cervicofacial (CFF) and cervicothoracic (CTF) flaps in the reconstruction of large oncosurgical defects in the lateral facial region of older patients. The study enrolled 36 patients with facial cutaneous cancers (age range, 65-94 years). They were divided into CFF and CTF groups in the facial region and in the neck. The clinical stages were I, II, and III in 6, 21, and 9 patients, respectively. The lateral face was divided into 3 aesthetic units: forehead, cheeks, and neck. Postoperative complications were scored using the Clavien-Dindo classification. The CFF was used to reconstruct oncosurgical defects in 8 foreheads and 16 cheeks; the CFF was used to reconstruct defects in 4 cheeks and 8 necks. The median sizes of skin defects in the CFF and CTF groups were 3.9×4.4 and 6.8×7.7cm, respectively. There were no full flap failures. The Clavien-Dindo grades were I, II, and IIIa in 20, 9, and 2 patients, respectively, in the CFF and 0, 2, and 3 in the CTF group. Twenty-nine patients were alive without disease, 5 patients were alive with disease, and 2 patients had died of local recurrence or distant metastases. The CFF and CTF are simple, reliable, and excellent methods for reconstructing large oncosurgical defects in the lateral face of older patients with cutaneous cancer.

Simultaneous, Non-Contact and Motion-Based Monitoring of Respiratory Rate in Sheep Under Experimental Condition Using Visible and Near-Infrared Videos.

The validation of methods for understanding the effects of many diseases and treatments requires the use of animal models in translational research. In this context, sheep have been employed extensively in scientific studies. However, the imposition of experimental conditions upon these animals may result in the experience of discomfort, pain, and stress. The ethical debates surrounding the use of animals in research have resulted in the adoption of Directive 2010/63/EU. The present study proposes a non-contact method for monitoring the respiration rate of sheep based on video processing. The Detecron2 model was trained to segment the sheep's body, abdominal, and facial regions in the video frames. A motion-tracking algorithm was developed to assess abdominal movement associated with the sheep's respiratory cycle. The method was applied to videos of Rhön sheep under experimental and housing conditions, utilising two types of cameras to assess the effectiveness of the proposed approach. The mean average error (MAE) obtained was 0.79 breaths/minute for the visible and 1.83 breaths/minute for the near-infrared (NIR) method. This study demonstrates the feasibility of video technology for simultaneous and non-invasive respiration monitoring, being a crucial parameter for assessing the health deterioration of multiple laboratory animals.

Comprehensive rehabilitation of patients after injuries of the facial region: interaction of dentists and surgeons

This work highlights in detail modern approaches to the comprehensive rehabilitation of patients who have suffered injuries to the maxillofacial region, which can significantly affect the quality of life, causing functional disorders such as problems with chewing, speech and breathing, as well as significant aesthetic defects. Injuries in this area require the participation of specialists from different fields, and in this context, special attention is paid to the interaction of dentists and maxillofacial surgeons. Comprehensive rehabilitation includes several key stages: surgical treatment, restoration of bone and soft tissue structures, orthopedic and orthodontic treatment, as well as aesthetic correction. The need for close cooperation between the surgeon and the dentist is emphasized at all stages of treatment, from the initial diagnosis of injuries and treatment planning to surgical interventions and subsequent dental rehabilitation. Modern methods of surgical correction, such as osteosynthesis, reconstruction of bone defects using bone grafts and implants, as well as the use of new biomaterials, are discussed. Dental rehabilitation includes occlusion restoration, dental prosthetics and bite correction, which requires careful planning and consideration of surgical aspects. The issues of functional rehabilitation of patients, such as restoration of chewing function, proper articulation and facial aesthetics, are also considered. Special attention is paid to new technologies and innovative approaches, such as 3D modeling, digital surgery planning and the use of dental implants, which allow achieving high results in restoring both functionality and appearance of the patient. The article focuses on the importance of coordinated work of an interdisciplinary team to achieve the best results in the rehabilitation of patients after maxillofacial injuries. The authors emphasize that an integrated approach, including the interaction of specialists of different profiles, provides a more effective restoration of functions and aesthetics, which significantly improves the quality of life of patients.

Evaluation of efficacy of Hemoporfin-PDT in the treatment of PWS birthmarks of young children previously received PDL treatment

BackgroundHemoporfin-mediated photodynamic therapy (Hemoporfin-PDT) is considered a safe and effective treatment for port-wine stains (PWS). This study aims to investigate the influence of prior pulse dye laser (PDL) treatments history on the effectiveness of Hemoporfin-PDT in young children aged 1–3 years with PWS. MethodsData was gathered for individuals with PWS aged 1–3 years who received two or more Hemoporfin-PDT treatments. The study population was stratified into two groups: Cohort 1 (No PDL) comprised patients without a history of PDL treatment, while Cohort 2 (Prior PDL) consisted of patients with a history of PDL treatment. An analysis was conducted to investigate the relationship between treatment efficacy and variables including gender, age, location, and type of PWS. ResultsThere were a total of 220 cases in the No PDL group and 53 cases in the Prior PDL group. It was observed that prior PDL treatment history did not impact the efficacy of Hemoporfin-PDT in treating PWS among young children. Both the type and location of PWS significantly influence the clinical effectiveness of Hemoporfin-PDT for PWS (P = 0.040, P < 0.001), while gender and age show no association with treatment outcomes (P > 0.05). Notably, the peripheral face might be an independent influencing factor for high efficacy of Hemoporfin-PDT of the facial regions (P < 0.05). ConclusionPrevious PDL treatment history does not impact the effectiveness of Hemoporfin-PDT therapy in young children with PWS.