Will Cheek Implants Improve My Facial Balance After A LeFort I Advancement?

Q: Dr. Eppley, I had a Lefort 1 surgery which advanced my upper jaw forward by 7mm. This surgery made my midface soft tissues sag and feel empty. I suppose this is because the cheekbones were left behind.

My questions are : a) in order to fix this issue will cheek implants of 7mm thickness would be sufficient?

b) Generally, should the amount of augmentation in the cheekbone area be exactly the same as with the movement of the maxilla from the orthognathic surgery in order to fill out the midfacial tissues?

Thank you

A: In theory the augmentation of the cheekbones should be similar to the amount of LeFort I advancement…although remember that the maxilla is a pure 2D horizontal movement while the cheek is more of a 3D structure that is rarely changed as a pure horizontal augmentation. As a result the correlation may not be exactly 1:1.

Dr. Barry Eppley

World-Renowned Plastic Surgeon