The face lift: technical considerations

The approach to the aging face patient must maintain the goal of a consistent, lasting, and natural result. The deep plane rhytidectomy technique satisfies these criteria and allows the surgeon to address the key issues of neck, jawline, and midface aging in a reliable and predictable fashion. This approach offers the advantages of (1) greater anatomic appeal for the operating surgeon with a cleaner plane of dissection, (2) stronger flaps for soft tissue redraping, (3) decreased complications with less risk of undue skin tension, (4) improved aging midface and melolabial fold correction, and (5) the ability to better revise previous face lift attempts and achieve a more consistent facial symmetry and balance. Our technique has evolved from previous superficial musculo-aponeurotic system (SMAS) flap rhytidectomy and is described in a step-by-step fashion in this article. This approach appears to achieve excellent results while minimizing complications and may be more appealing than some other, less proven, alternatives to the aging face patient.