Soft-tissue mobility of the lower face depending on positional changes and age: a three-dimensional morphometric...

Area of Science:

• Plastic Surgery
• Biomechanical Engineering
• Medical Imaging

Background:

• Evaluating complex 3D facial anatomy is challenging.
• 3D surface scanning lacks widespread clinical adoption in plastic surgery research.
• Quantifying soft-tissue movement is crucial for understanding facial changes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce two novel parameters for quantifying soft-tissue movement.
• To compare lower facial surface changes with age and positional shifts.
• To assess age-related differences in facial soft-tissue mobility.

Main Methods:

• Utilized 3D surface scanning on two female subject groups (20-35 and 45-60 years).
• Scanned subjects in supine and sitting positions.
• Introduced 'deformability' and 'stretchability' parameters to analyze surface changes.

Main Results:

• Significant differences in tissue mobility between young and old subjects were observed.
• Older subjects showed greater soft-tissue displacement (up to 6 mm) compared to younger subjects (up to 4 mm).
• A trend of losing upper posterior projection and gaining lower anterior projection was noted with age.

Conclusions:

• New parameters demonstrate statistically significant increases in facial tissue displacement and surface stretching with age.
• These findings provide quantitative insights into age-related facial changes.
• The study highlights the utility of novel parameters in analyzing facial soft-tissue dynamics.