Sao Paulo — The complicated nature of rhinoplasty results in an average revision rate of 15 to 20 percent — a rate one surgeons says can be improved significantly.

At the 32nd annual Jornada Paulista de Cirurgia Plastica in Sao Paulo, Dallas plastic surgeon Rod J. Rohrich, M.D., discussed techniques for consistently good results and minimize the need for secondary or revision rhinoplasty, PRWeb reports.

Dr. Rohrich emphasized the open approach to rhinoplasty, which allows surgeons to easily see underlying nasal structures so they are able to reshape deformities more precisely. This helps surgeons avoid the use of visible grafts, which can compromise success rates and result in unnatural looking noses that are not in harmony with a patient’s facial features.

Using underlying nasal cartilage to reshape the nose provides a more natural appearance, Dr. Rohrich said.

“Rhinoplasty … really epitomizes plastic surgery as a whole because it is a surgery of such great finesse and it takes years to master,” Dr. Rohrich said. “Our goal is to teach rhinoplasty surgeons worldwide that with the use of these new techniques and by using the open approach to rhinoplasty, we can dramatically reduce the revision or ‘redo’ rate in rhinoplasty.”

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Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. — A radiofrequency device by Pollogen is safe and effective for reducing facial wrinkles, according to results of a recent clinical trial.

Pollogen’s TriPollar Apollo device was tested in a blinded clinical trial, headed by Palm Beach Gardens cosmetic surgeon Steven D. Shapiro, M.D., PRWeb reports. The study included 37 female patients who received eight weekly treatments with the device to reduce facial wrinkles. The patients were scheduled for follow-up visits at one and three months following the last treatment.

There were no unexpected adverse side effects, PRWeb reports. Pre- and post-treatment photographic analysis conducted by two physicians revealed improvement of 94 to 97 percent.

“We performed 136 treatments in our study without any side effects,” PRWeb quotes Dr. Shapiro as saying. “Patients reported a pleasant and pain-free experience and were satisfied with the results. I observed a significant reduction in wrinkles.”

According to PRWeb, the TriPollar Apollo is cleared by the Food and Drug Administration for the noninvasive treatment of mild-to-moderate facial wrinkles.

The study was published in the August issue of Lasers in Surgery and Medicine.

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Cairo — Lipofilling is effective in restoring facial contours and balance in patients with nonsyndromic long-face deformity, results of a recent study suggest.

The study, headed by Ahmed Ali, M.D., department of plastic surgery, Ain Shams University, included 84 female patients with nonsyndromic long-face deformity. Clinicians used lipofilling or structural fat grafting to contour and create well-balanced facial dimensions. Structure lipofilling was performed using the standard Coleman technique. The width of patients’ faces were measured at three transverse dimensions: transzygomatic, transtemporal and transbuccal.

With an average follow-up period of one year, there was an increase in the transverse facial dimensions, with increased width/height facial index. More than 91 percent of the patients were satisfied with the results, the study authors reported.

The study concluded that long-face deformity due to volume deficiency after weight loss can be corrected by lipofilling, which restores the contour with balanced facial dimensions.

The study was published in the June issue of American Journal of Cosmetic Surgery.

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Boston — People beset by some sort of phobic anxiety — and 8 percent of Americans have at least one — may be more prone than others to faster biological aging and related health problems, a recent study suggests.

Researchers with Brigham and Women’s Hospital examined blood samples and survey results from 5,243 women ages 42 to 69 from the Nurses Health Study cohort. Women with the highest levels of phobic anxiety had biological markers similar to those of women who were six years older.

According to a blog report on ScientificAmerican.com, study investigators looked specifically at telomeres, the protective ends of chromosomes that keep genetic information from being lost during cell division. Telomeres shorten naturally, and scientists suspect shortening results from exposure to oxidative stress and inflammation. Shorter telomeres have been associated with a higher risk of heart disease, cancer and dementia.

Investigators suggested the study’s results demonstrate “a connection between a common form of psychological stress — phobic anxiety — and a plausible mechanism for premature aging,” ScientificAmerican.com reports.

Phobic anxieties, which are especially common in women, are treatable with therapy. If phobias do play a role in shortening telomeres, it might be possible to stave off premature aging and associated disease risks by treating those anxieties, the authors concluded.
The findings were published online in PLoS ONE.

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London — Medical records and photos detailing pioneering plastic surgeries performed on British soldiers wounded in World War I have emerged and can be viewed online for the first time.

The records detail the groundbreaking work of Harold Gillies, M.D., an otolaryngologist who some consider the father of plastic surgery and who developed some of the world’s first successful skin grafts during the war, The Telegraph of London reports.

Records of 11,000 operations procedures done between 1917 and 1925, including details of more than 3,000 soldiers treated during the war, have been posted at findmypast.co.uk. The posting is described as a rare opportunity for family historians to learn more about relatives who survived the war.

Dr. Gillies introduced the tubed pedicle, allowing surgeons to use patients’ own tissues, reducing the chance of rejection, The Telegraph reports.

“The medical world owes a great deal to Dr. Gillies, as do those who were treated by him in the early 20th century and anyone who has ever received plastic surgery treatment since then,” The Telegraph quotes Debra Chatfield, family historian at findmypast.co.uk, as saying. “Without his pioneering developments in this field, plastic surgery might not be as advanced as it is today.”

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New York — A growing number of Americans are kicking around the idea of cosmetic toe surgery, according to recent reports.

Procedures to shape, resize and thin toes are on the rise in the United States, the U.K.’s Daily Mail reports.

Oliver Zong, DPM, a New York podiatrist, appeared recently on “Good Morning America” recently to discuss toe slimming and reshaping surgery.

“We were mostly doing toe shortenings in the beginning,” Dr. Zong said. 

Some surgeons have reservations about performing cosmetic toe procedures, however.

Hillary Brenner, D.P.M., a podiatric surgeon and member of the American Podiatric Medical Association, says she sees the potential for more problems than benefits.

“You’re undergoing risks,” the Daily Mail quotes Dr. Brenner as saying. “There’s the risk of anesthesia, infection, deformity of the toe if the surgery is not done right, a risk of reccurence and the risk of surgery in general. Why fix something that isn’t broken?”

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Hamburg, Germany — Three hyaluronic acids (HAs) used to augment facial tissue perform very similarly, although one filler stood out in week four of a recent German study.

A research team headed by Hamburg dermatologist Welf Prager, M.D., conducted a split-face, randomized, two-armed study to determine the long-term safety and effectiveness of three Has — referred to in the study as HA-1 (Belotero Basic/Balance, Merz), HA-2 (Restylane, Medicis) and HA-3 (Juvéderm Ultra 3/Juvéderm Ultra Plus XC, Allergan) — in the treatment of nasolabial folds.

Twenty patients in arm A received HA-1 in one nasolabial fold, HA-2 in the other. In arm B, 20 participants received HA-1 in one nasolabial fold, HA-3 in the other. Injection occurred at the second visit, with follow-up visits at one, six, nine and 12 months. All injections were at a volume of slightly less than 1.5 mL.

According to the study abstract, adverse events were unremarkable for the three HAs, with injection-site erythema being the most frequent.

“All three HAs provided essentially equivalent results, except for four-week evenness results, which favored HA-1,” the authors wrote.

The study was published online in Dermatologic Surgery.

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New York — Agents that block receptors for adenosine may be applied topically to wound sites, helping to diminish scars, according to results of a new study.

Scientists with New York University School of Medicine describe how adenosine, an ATP-generated molecule the body uses to provide energy to muscles, can be used topically for scar treatment, resulting in skin that feels like the original, unscarred skin, Medical News Today reports.

When skin tissue is wounded, ATP leaks from the damaged cells and is converted to adenosine, which promotes healing, Medical News Today reports. Scars form when adenosine continues to be produced at the wound site after the injury is healed. To study the possibility of reducing scar sizes, researchers from the New York University School of Medicine studied wounds on mice. After the wound closed, the adenosine A2A receptor antagonist was applied. The adenosine A2A receptor agonist prevented excessive scar tissue in the treated mice, researchers determined.

"Scars can be disfiguring and, if extensive enough, can lead to diminished function and quality of life," Medical News Today quotes researcher Bruce N. Cronstein, M.D., as saying. “We hope that our findings may lead to new agents that diminish scarring and disfigurement following burns, wounds or even illnesses that destroy skin.”

The report was published online in FASEB Journal.

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Naples, Italy — An alternative to liposuction that uses a combination of cryolipolysis and shock waves shows promise for reducing subcutaneous fat and cellulite, according to a recent study.

Ice-Shock Lipolysis uses a combination of shock waves and cryolipolysis to reduce the circumference of treated areas, including localized fat and cellulite. Investigators with the Second University of Naples studied the combination treatment in 50 patients. They found a mean reduction in fat thickness after treatments was over 3 cm, with a mean 4.45 cm reduction in circumference.

The combination of shock waves, normally used in the treatment of musculoskeletal disorders, and cryolipolysis, a noninvasive method of destroying localized subcutaneous fat, caused programmed death and slow resorption of destroyed adipocytes.

“The findings show that the action of Ice-Shock Lipolysis is a safe, effective, and well-tolerated noninvasive procedure for body contouring,” the authors concluded. “In particular, (we) believe that this could be an ideal alternative to liposuction for patients who require only small or moderate amounts of adipose tissue and cellulite removal or are not suitable candidates for surgical approaches to body contouring.”

The study was published in Aesthetic Plastic Surgery.

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Fullerton, Calif. — The LipoTron 3000, a popular aesthetic device touted for its ability to eliminate fat, is gaining popularity in some physicians’ offices around the country, but the product hasn’t been cleared by federal authorities.

Medical spas in Chicago and Florida call the LipoTron 3000 “innovative” and “effective,” but the device hasn’t achieved clearance by the Food and Drug Administration. The device, also known as Lipo-Ex, is manufactured by RevecoMED and has been falsely advertised by some practitioners as being FDA-approved, according to the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting.

According to the FCIR, the federal agency won’t say whether it is investigating RevecoMED, citing a policy not to discuss investigations or acknowledge if there is one.

RevecoMED President James S. Rosen said the government agency hasn’t contacted his company.

“As of today, we are compliant with the FDA,” Mr. Rosen told the FCIR.

The Texas Department of State Health Services issued a warning letter to a Fort Worth distributor in September 2011 regarding the company’s marketing of LipoTron without FDA clearance, FCIR reports.

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