Study Supports Safety, Efficacy of Subcutaneous Forehead Lift for Upper Facial Aging

Key Takeaways

• Subcutaneous forehead lift (SFL) significantly reduced forehead and glabellar wrinkle scores in a 697-patient retrospective analysis.
• Greater improvement was observed in the forehead compared with the glabella using the Wrinkle Assessment Scale (WAS).
• The procedure demonstrated high inter-rater reliability and a low rate of minor complications.

A retrospective analysis published in Frontiers in Surgery evaluated the effectiveness and safety of subcutaneous forehead lift (SFL) for reducing horizontal forehead and glabellar wrinkles using the validated Wrinkle Assessment Scale (WAS). The study included 697 patients treated at a single institution between January 2015 and September 2024, all of whom underwent SFL with a pretrichial incision.

Wrinkle severity was assessed preoperatively and at the last postoperative follow-up. Mean forehead wrinkle scores improved from 2.47 ± 1.29 to 1.52 ± 0.96, while glabellar scores decreased from 2.14 ± 0.92 to 1.47 ± 0.83. The degree of improvement was greater in the forehead (0.95 ± 0.85) compared with the glabella (0.67 ± 0.65).

Inter-rater reliability analysis, conducted in a subset of 100 patients, demonstrated excellent agreement, with intraclass correlation coefficients of 0.954 for forehead assessments and 0.941 for glabellar evaluations. Postoperative safety outcomes indicated minor complications in a small number of patients, with no significant long-term complications reported.

The authors noted that quantitative data on surgical interventions for upper facial wrinkles remain limited, positioning this study as a contribution to objective outcome measurement in aesthetic procedures. Limitations include its retrospective design and single-center setting.

“The SFL is a safe and effective procedure for wrinkle reduction in the forehead and glabellar regions,” the authors wrote. “This technique demonstrated significant anti-aging benefits, with a low complication rate, presenting an effective option for managing forehead and glabellar wrinkles.”