The round-ear incision in full face-lifting.

Several techniques for face-lifting have been described, all aimed at achieving a youthful appearance with a hidden scar. The authors are concerned about the conspicuous horizontal scar that travels all the way through the hairless skin behind the ears, which they consider very unpleasant and totally unnecessary. They are able to achieve a normal-appearing face with a safer technique that minimizes the visible scars such as the postauricular one, yet still has good and lasting results. In the past 9 years, 202 patients, men and women ages 38 to 86 years, have undergone surgery using the round-ear face-lifting technique, most of them with local anesthesia and sedation. The authors were able to achieve good and lasting results with a minimum of complications and to change the unaesthetic postauricular scar to a retroauricular one (with contouring of the concha) using a new design of marking the skin incisions. A new face-lifting incision is described. The procedure is suitable and safer for all patients requiring facial rejuvenation. The main advantage of this technique is the absence of visible postauricular scars.