Brow lift surgery can help correct several problems in the forehead area, such as frown lines or crow’s feet on the upper portions of the face and a sagging or descended brow. While there are several techniques your cosmetic surgeon can use, a recent study published in the Archives of Facial Plastic Surgery found that patients had less initial numbness in the forehead and scalp when an endoscopic brow lift was performed.
An endoscopic brow lift entails the surgeon making a few tiny incisions in the scalp, and the endoscope, a tiny camera, is inserted into one of the incisions to view the tissues and muscles from a screen. The study compared it to the open brow lift, which has one continuous incision from ear to ear, that goes up around the hair line.
The study had 21 participants; 11 had an endoscopic brow lift and 10 had an open brow lift. The researchers found that those who had the open brow lift had significantly greater objective loss of sensation from one to two weeks to 12 to 14 weeks after surgery, and greater subjective sensory loss from four to six weeks to 12 to 14 weeks. However, by 24 to 26 weeks after surgery the differences were no longer present.
In addition, a retrospective analysis was done with 58 patients at 6 months or more postoperatively. Again, the open group had more numbness early on, from 6 to 18 months, but the differences disappeared after the 18-month point.
Despite the numbness, the authors found that “almost no patients (57 of 58), irrespective of the technique used for their brow lift, viewed their experienced forehead and/or scalp numbness to have been significant enough to deter them from undergoing the surgery again.”
Dr. Lo performs endoscopic brow lifts at About Faces Cosmetic Surgery.
