Determining the Effectiveness of Non-Surgical Skin Tightening Methods

Abstract

As medicine and medical technology have advance exponentially over recent decades, the antiaging branch of the medical field has quickly become one of the most innovative and attractive branches of medicine. Many patients in this field who want to restore their youthful appearance do so by having procedures like FaceTite/NeckTite, Thermage, or Morpheus 8 done. This study focuses looks at these three different forms of minimally invasive skin tightening procedures within the anti-aging field. All participants in this study are current or former patients at Grossman Dermatology, a Dermatology private practice located in Santa Monica, California. We took data from over 50 patients of the private practice. The primary objective was to determine if all forms of treatment were at all effective in delivering desired results, meaning a decrease in surface area and volume in either the neck or cheek region. The second goal of this study is to determine which of the three anti-aging skin tightening methods is the most effective and delivers the best results, however, only Thermage and Morpheus8 can be used to study the cheek region, unlike the neck region where all three techniques were included. After studying both the neck and cheek regions of the body, the data showed that all forms of treatment were effective in their goal and delivered statistically significant decreases in volume and surface of skin in patients with all P values being less than 0.01. According to the data, Thermage was the most effective in decreasing surface area in the neck area while NeckTite was the most successful in delivering a decrease in volume in the neck region. When looking at the Cheek, Morpheus8 was also outperformed by Thermage at certain time periods. This suggests that the invasiveness and strength of a procedure does not necessarily guarantee the best results. Due to these unexpected findings, further research needs to be done to further understand why this is the case.