Haematoma remains the most common complication of rhytidectomy and can lead
to prolonged facial oedema or skin necrosis. The factors leading to haemat
oma formation remain unclear, and studies establishing causal relationships
are lacking. The aim of this study was to determine which parameters were
significantly associated with haematoma formation in a consecutive series o
f facelifts performed by two high-volume operators. The records of 1078 pat
ients who underwent facelifting between 1994 and 1999 were reviewed and the
parameters associated with haematoma formation were investigated using mul
tivariate statistical analysis. In this series of 1078 patients, 45 haemato
mas occurred (4.2%). Analysis revealed significant associations between hae
matoma formation and anterior platysmaplasty (P = 0.009), systolic pressure
(P = 0.02), gender (P = 0.03), aspirin or non-steroidal anti-inflammatory
intake (P = 0.04) and smoking (P = 0.049). In addition the relative risk of
each parameter was calculated. This allowed the haematoma risk for individ
ual patients to be calculated and haematoma-prone patients were identified
preoperatively. This is the first study to establish independent statistica
l risk factors for haematoma after rhytidectomy and to present a scoring sy
stem that calculates the haematoma risk preoperatively. The implications of
these findings and possible measures for the prevention of haematoma are a
lso presented. (C) 2001 The British Association of Plastic Surgeons.