Elimination of aesthetic deformity resulted after facial nerve paresis by thread methods

Introduction: Even insignificant visual manifestations of posttraumatic face deformities and face paralysis look so unaesthetic that they cause quite obvious discomfort to patients. Some patients with such deformities have already undergone surgical interventions and some other treatments, and these methods have come to the end of their tether; and other patients just cannot be operated by classical methods.

Objective: To develop minimally invasive non - surgical methods of management of posttraumatic and paralytic residual face deformities, to analyze and to apply these methods in clinical practice in order to add one more supplementary stage in the process of such patients’ rehabilitation.

Materials and methods: Here is represented a long-term experience (since 1996) of patients’ treatment who have aesthetic face deformities of traumatic, burn, neurological, and iatrogenic etiology of static and/or dynamic nature, and who underwent correction of visual aesthetic manifestations of the diseases in different face zones by threat lifting methods. Correction was performed at: one-sided brow phtosis, inferior eyelid edge, cheek soft tissues, angles of mouth and other parts of the face. Various methods of thread lift will be described: smooth threads or threads with multipunctate fixation, absorbable and non-absorbable, with the linear or round direction, with dense structures fixation or without it. Schemes of interventions and short video films will be presented.

Results: Various results are shown by longevity (basically satisfactory and good) as well as cases with fast relapse. Recommendations are given for application of different lifting methods depending on indications.

Conclusions: Thread correction technique now is not a new trend of plastic surgery, it allows to correct effectively aesthetic deformities of face soft tissues. This surgical trend can be considered as the “last” instance in the surgical treatment of patients with face paralysis and other deformities of face soft tissues.