Thread Lift: A Barbed Suture or Lunch Time Lift Technique for a “Non-Surgical Facelift”

 
PROMISES

By passing barbed threads through the cheek and forehead, the facial tissues can be lifted providing a non-surgical facelift. Claims are made that this procedure is 75% as effective as a face lift and results last 6 years!!!! (Feather lift, Contour threads, etc).
 

PITFALLS

This new, unproven and expensive treatment should be approached with skepticism:

• Many practitioners offering this new procedure are not even surgeons since it is readily done in an office setting and is technically very simple.
• This technique may be non-surgical, but it isn't non-invasive. Needles are inserted into the tissues of the face, thru which the barbed sutures are threaded.
• This invasive procedure can potentially result in nerve injury, cause numbness or muscle weakness or paralysis. Infection is another potential complication of any invasive procedure. Further, the threads may become visible because of a too superficial placement.
• While the appearance may be natural in repose, on animation of the face, deformity may result.
• Once in place, removal is technically difficult.
• Since this is a new technique, one can only speculate the difficulty that might be encountered when a surgical facelift is attempted in a patient having barbed sutures in place: scarring, distortion of normal anatomy.
• There is no scientific data to substantiate claims made about the effectiveness of this technique.
• Results are minimal and are temporary (according reports at the American Society of Plastic Surgery, Annual meeting, Emerging Trends Panel Oct. 2004.)
• Before and after pictures that appears in ads, websites, magazine articles, and even scientific publications show very little change in appearance. And one can only assume that the results shown are the best available.
• The procedure is expensive. Contour threads cost $150 each and many may be required depending on the deformity to be corrected.