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Patients looked younger, not necessarily more attractive after aesthetic facial surgery
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Aesthetic facial surgery effectively reduced patients’ apparent age by about 3 years but did not significantly improve their attractiveness, according to study results released today.
A group of 50 independent raters, composed of laypersons and hospital workers masked to the study objective, reviewed preoperative and postoperative photographs of 49 patients (mean age, 57 years; 37 women). All patients underwent aesthetic facial surgery between July 2006 and July 2010 at a private practice in Toronto. Primary procedures included face-lift or neck-lift, upper or lower blepharoplasty or brow lift (alone or in combination), with a minimum of 6 months follow-up. Other criteria included standardized photographs without makeup or jewelry and no cosmetic procedures during follow-up.
Patients’ ages were estimated, and attractiveness was rated on a 1-10 scale. “Years saved” — defined as real age minus guessed age — and post-surgery change in attractiveness scale were the primary outcomes.
The raters estimated mean years saved after surgery as 3.1 years (range, –4 years to 9.4 years), with the highest years saved for patients who underwent upper and lower facial rejuvenation (mean, 4.3 years; range, –2.9 years to 9.4 years). Attractiveness scores had a small but insignificant increase (P>.54), with 60% of scores ranging from 4 to 6. Female raters scored patients higher than male raters.
“The subjective nature of facial rejuvenation surgery presents a challenge in the assessment of successful results,” the researchers wrote. “Our data demonstrate that aging face surgery is effective in reducing the apparent age of patients, but does not consistently improve a patient’s attractiveness.
“The age reduction is more substantial when the number of surgical procedures is increased, but this did not significantly improve overall attractiveness. Given the limitations of the attractiveness component of this study … further investigation is warranted.”
Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.
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