#1-3. The Association of Minimal Invasive Plastic Surgery Column – Thread lifting

Jeong Youngchoon, M.D.

Director

HERSHE Plastic Surgery & Dermatology, Seoul Korea

The anchoring-type lifting can be expected to have better efficacy and duration than the floating-type. However, as most anchoring-type procedures require incision in the temporal region, it takes away from the benefit of the non-invasive procedure.

Moreover, as the thread is anchored or fixed onto the temporalis muscle, pain is felt when opening the mouth or chewing and can last up to 2-3 weeks.

Ahn et al. proposed combined-type thread lifting using Blue Rose thread. They divided the face into the mobile anterior portion and fixed lateral portion to enable natural animation using the floating-type thread in the anterior portion. They further corrected the sagging tissues of the anterior face by providing extra support with a fixed-type thread anchored onto the lateral face. They argued that this technique helped avoid the appearance of widened cheekbones when fixed-type thread is used in Asians.

Thread lifting alone brings visibly noticeable lifting effects incomparable with other minimally invasive facial rejuvenation techniques such as botulinum toxin injection, dermal fillers, laser, and RF, etc. Combination with these methods may bring synergistic effect.

Thread lifting is a simple and affordable procedure with minimal invasiveness and down time. These benefits make the thread lift one of the most popular aesthetic procedures. It needs to be more extensively researched. Despite its simplicity, a lot of experience is needed to avoid the frequent recurrence and complications. Doctors experiencing complications will need to enlarge his or her clinical experience.

PDO is the most widely used material for absorbable cogged thread. It is important to correctly determine whether to use the floating-type and fixed-type alone or in combination, the direction of tensile strength, locating the exit and entry points, the number of threads and depth. Lastly, the learning curve is long with thread lifting and much experience is needed to achieve optimal safety and efficacy.