Facial Implant Myths and Misconceptions

Q: Dr. Eppley, Can you analyze a patients soft tissue during a consult to tell them if they can achieve the angularity they hope for with facial implants?

A genioplasty and chin implant will have the same amount of angularity then, I suppose, right?

Also, does material matter? Do harder materials like PEEK or more brittle ones like medpor have any benefit?

A: In answer to your questions:

1) There is no preoperative test or method of evaluation that can predict how any patient’s soft tissues will respond to what is changed underneath it.

2) A sliding genioplasty and chin implant will have slightly different aesthetic effects because their resultant shapes are different. But both stretch out the soft tissues.

3) It is a myth that that any of the implant  materials used will have an influence on the overlying soft tissue effect. There is no biologic basis for that common misconception.

Dr. Barry Eppley

Indianapolis, Indiana