[Cutaneous retraction. Data from liposuction and other clinical procedures]

The remarkable capacity of the skin to stretch is used in the skin expander technique. In parallel, the skin is also able to retract, which is very useful for the plastic surgeon. This ability to retract may open the road for new techniques. Suction lipectomy, which allows removal of large volumes of fat without skin resection, is a privileged technique for the study of retractability characteristics. This study compares the pre and postoperative conditions in 392 cases of body liposuction and 108 cases of cervicofacial liposuctions, to determine the factors which influence skin retraction. It appears that age and the total amount of fat removed have an incidence on the time needed to obtain the final result. However the treatment site emerges as a determinant factor on the potential of the skin to retract postoperatively. In practice, the skin elasticity appears to be very different in different treatment sites, and considerable variations can even be observed between two neighbouring regions. In the neck and cheeks the skin seems considerably more retractable than in other sites, and we can trace the boundaries of the optimal retractability for the liposuction: "the golden triangle at the neck". The considerable plasticity of the skin overlying the neck contrasts with the poor ability of facial skin to retract. On the body, the skin resumes its previous form in the vast majority of patients (90%). These data, derived from a liposuction study, may be compared with other clinical observations.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)