Will My Soft Tissues Go back To What They Were After A Large Chin Implant Removal?

Q: Dr. Eppley, I am a 19 year old male, potentially looking to get a chin implant removed. The type of implant is a Terino square chin style 2, size L (attached picture of dimensions). The implant was placed with an incision underneath my chin. I got this implant placed into me this past summer. I was wondering if i get it removed, will my skin around the chin return to where it was before? I am mainly concerned with sagging of the tissue and also if there would be any loss of bone from resorption causing my chin to look more recessed than before implant.

And also would the scar tissue cause a permanent gain in augmentation after implant removal?

Since you say the tissue does not revert back with a style 2 chin implant after removal, would it be possible to make the tissue the same as it was before with something like skin tightening, or anything else if I decide to remove the implant sometime in the future?

And in case there is any resorption like in attached picture, would it be possible to fill in the area with bone graft to permanently fill the resorbed area?

Thanks

A: In answer to your chin implant removal questions:

1) It would be fair to assume that removing your chin implant is not going to allow the chin soft tissues to completely return to their preoperative state. While they have a good ability for substantial shrinkage you can’t release all the ligamentous attachments to the front of the chin and place a big implant (which a style 2 large chin implant is) and expect everything to go back exactly to what it was. The question is not whether there will be some changes but how significant they will or will not be.

2) Any residual scar tissue is not going to create any really visible chin augmentation effect.

3) Certainly device-driven forms of tissue tightening will not hurt. But in the end it is largely about how much soft tissue shrinkage your soft tissue can do on their own.

4) The best approach for such bone recontouring is hydroxyapatite cement not a bone graft.

Dr. Barry Eppley

Indianapolis, Indiana