I enjoy the creativity and challenge that comes with performing esthetic facial surgery, but also really enjoy using my cosmetic surgery skills to help people look their best after cancer surgery. This woman had a small cancer in her parotid gland (a salivary gland), which is right in front of the ear. The cancer was invading the salivary duct, requiring complete removal of the salivary gland by her oncologist Dr. Gendron. The salivary gland is the size of an egg, so this left a very large depression or “divot” on the right side of the face. By moving a nearby muscle to fill the divot, and performing a mini-facelift on the right side, I was able to create near perfect facial symmetry for this patient.
These pictures were taken 3 weeks after surgery. This is a good example of how the facelift incision is well-hidden and becomes invisible after just a few weeks. You can see how the mini-facelift in the left image has tightened the skin and removed fine lines in the face and jowl. A more complete facelift as would be performed for purely esthetic regions would achieve additional improvement in the jowl, and tighten the neck skin as well.