Safety of Combined Facial Plastic Procedures Affecting Multiple Planes in a Single Setting in Facial Feminization for Transgender Patients

Nikita Gupta, Jacqueline Wulu, Jeffrey H. Spiegel

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

26 Scopus citations

Abstract

Background: The objective is to evaluate the safety of performing multiple combined facial plastic surgical procedures affecting various planes of the face including rhytidectomy, forehead contouring with browlift, cheek implants, rhinoplasty, and mandible contouring in a single setting. Methods: This is a retrospective study of patients undergoing facial plastic surgery with the senior author at Boston Medical Center from 2005 to 2017. Patients were included if they underwent all of the above procedures in one setting and had not had previous facial surgery. The primary outcome measure was local postoperative complications of tissue necrosis and wound dehiscence. The secondary outcome measures were general postoperative complications of venous thromboembolism and prolonged intubation. Results: A total of 25 patients met inclusion criteria. Four patients experienced an infection—two patients had cheek implant infections delayed by months, one had a facelift hematoma that became infected, and one had an intraoral incision infection. One patient suffered from pulmonary embolism 2 months after surgery in the setting of hormone replacement therapy. All patients were extubated at the end of the case and none required reintubation. All patients had good cosmetic results. Conclusion: Despite elevating multiple planes of the face at the same time, there were no complications related to vascular supply in any of the patients. Complications were limited to those known to occur with the individual procedures. This study demonstrates that concurrent procedures that elevate multiple planes in the face in a single setting may be performed safely and with good cosmetic outcomes. Level of Evidence IV: This journal requires that authors assign a level of evidence to each article. For a full description of these evidence-based medicine ratings, please refer to the table of contents or the online instructions to authors www.springer.com/00266.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)993-999
Number of pages7
JournalAesthetic Plastic Surgery
Volume43
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Aug 15 2019

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature and International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery.

Keywords

  • Combined procedures
  • Concurrent procedures
  • Face lift
  • Facial feminization
  • Facial plastic surgery
  • Multiple facial procedures
  • Transgender

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Surgery

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