A COMPARISON BETWEEN PARALLEL HAIRLINE INCISIONS AND PERPENDICULAR INCISIONS WHEN PERFORMING A FACE LIFT

Our profession has not decided if it is better to incise parallel or p erpendicular (at an angle) to hair follicles when performing a brow li ft or a face lift. Thirty patients had one side incised parallel and t he other side incised perpendicular to hair follicles. Neither the pat ients nor the examiners knew how each side was incised. By comparing t he invisibility, the nonlinearity, the absence of hypopigmentation, an d the abundance of hair into and in front of the scar, we obtained sta tistical proof that if we incised perpendicular to hair follicles (to preserve the deep follicles in the proximal flap), scars were better i n 95 percent of patients.