While in her middle 30s our patient had concerns on her neck contours with under chin fullness and indistinct jaw lines. Her weight had been stable and she was at a healthy overall body weight. After discussing her concerns and performing a physical exam, Dr. Levesque recommended deep neck contouring compared to neck liposuction or lateral neck lift approaches. The reason in this particular patient was the fullness was determined on physical exam to reside deep to the platysma muscle in the (submental) region or under the chin area.
Performing liposuction as the only treatment could give her improved contours but would not contour the deep neck structures and likely set her up for abnormally thin skin in 5-10 years with visible platysma bands that we frequently see from overzealous neck liposuction.
By removing fat deep to the platysma, judiciously contouring the hyoid fascia and anterior belly of the digastric muscle with plication of the digastric and platysma muscles we can see the improvement in her neck contours that look totally natural.
Her result should be durable as we did not resect the superficial fat layer. Not all patients will be a candidate for this approach but in this young patient with good skin quality the straightforward procedure with inconspicuous placement of the scar we were happy to help the patient reach her aesthetic goals. We performed her procedure under local anesthesia allowing a swift recovery with minimal risk.
More