Can A Female Get Jaw Angle Implants?

Q: Dr. Eppley, I am a 35 year old female and am interested in jaw angle implants. I have high jaw angles and my jawline looks deficient in the back. I’m interested but I would like to learn more about your experience with this specific procedure. How many cases did you complete that are similar to mine? And if there have been some revisions needed, can you share those stories as well? I understand that jaw angle implants have a high revision rate, and that it takes someone with a lot of experience. Anything you can share on this topic would really help me make a decision.

A: I have performed jaw angle implants for 20 years but the greatest number have been in the past ten years. The incidence between men and women historically is about 20:1 indicating not surprisingly that this is a male dominated procedure. Few women get them although that is slowly changing as more women become aware of their benefits and the desire for a more pronounced jawline has become more desired. As in men, the most common indication for jaw angle implants is in the high jaw angle where vertical lengthening is really needed. This has posed a vexing problem since all current styles of silicone jaw angle implants really only provide width (horizontal increase) and not much if any vertical elongation. This has led me to develop my own style of jaw angle implants that provide specific amounts of vertical lengthening and widths. Such jaw angle implant styles will be available later this year through the Implantech company and will be known as Vertical Jaw Angle Implants.

The revision rate in jaw angle implants has been historically high for a variety of reasons including inadequate/incorrectly chosen implant styles, asymmetry of surgical placement, natural jaw angle bony asymmetry, lack of screw fixation use (particularly in vertical jaw angle implants), lack of most plastic and oral surgeons experience in placing them and patient expectations of what they can achieve in jawline enhancement. These revision rates can be lowered down to that of other facial implant rates (10%t to 15%) with preoperative computer imaging, proper implant style selection, use of screw fixation and a surgeon who is very experienced in placing them.

Dr. Barry Eppley

Indianapolis, Indiana