Gender-dependent impact of aging on facial proportions

Facial proportions in younger people have been evaluated in several studies. However, the number of older people who need orthognathic surgery is growing steadily. The aim of this study was to evaluate facial morphology in Caucasians accounting for age and gender.

Three-dimensional facial scans of 240 healthy volunteers were taken. The subjects were divided into males and females, then into three groups by age (21-35, 36-50 and 51-65 years). Landmarks and artificial planes were placed in the scans. Distances, relations and angles between them and the artificial frontal plane were recorded.

Nearly all distances between the tragion and the landmarks in the middle of the face increased with the age of the volunteers. Therefore, the soft tissue of the face grows horizontally with increasing age. Also, the length of the upper lip increased with age. The percentage of subnasale-stomion and stomion-menton distances of the total subnasale-stomion-menton measurement changed significantly (men: p = 0.149; women: p < 0.001) during aging in females but not in males. The landmarks in the upper and middle third of the face were closer to the frontal plane in women than in men.

Using the created frontal plane for evaluating landmarks in the sagittal plane facilitates measuring positions of soft tissue. There are significant changes in distances, angles and relations during aging which can be very important for planning orthognathic surgery.