Periorbital and Perioral Regions in Relation to Aging

The aim of this study was to determine the boundary between the periorbital and perioral regions based on a literature review.PubMed was searched for the terms (zone [OR] area [OR] region) [AND] (face-lift [OR] rhytidectomy), and 872 abstracts were found. Additionally, the terms (levator labii superioris [AND] orbicularis oculi) resulted in 20 abstracts. The author separately searched for (Lightoller) because searching PubMed for terms in abstracts does not yield results for older papers that do not have abstracts.Among the papers identified through this search strategy, the author did not find any that defined the boundary of the periorbital and perioral regions. However, the author found Lightoller's research on the subject and retrieved 8 articles that he authored. Two of his papers showed and described the origins of the facial muscles. Burkitt and Lightoller reported that the inferior bony origin of the pars orbitalis extended laterally to the medial end of the caput infraorbitale M. quadrati labii superioris. According to those authors, there was a definite boundary between the origins of the periorbital muscles (pars orbitalis and pars oculobuccalis of the orbicularis oculi) and the perioral muscles (caput infraorbitale of the quadratus labii superioris). Based on that article, it is possible to divide the face into periorbital and perioral regions based on the origin of the circumoral and circumocular muscles.With this division, the surgical technique based on the concept of these 2 regions could be followed.