The use of standard chin and jaw angle implants has long been a proven method of creating a more complete jaw augmentation effect. By adding augmentations at the three corners of the lower jaw its shape is changed although not in entirely complete fashion. As the implants indicate it is the corners that are changed and not the entire jawline. This may seem to be a semantical difference but the aesthetic differences are visible.
Besides the aesthetic dissimilarities between jaw corner and complete jawline implants there are also important placement differences. Standard chin and jaw angle implants are three separate implants that have no correlation between them. The placement of one of them provides no guidance as to how the other two should be placed. They are independently placed implants with no cross reference between them. Thus the rate of implant malposition is quite high using standard implants for jaw augmentation.
To illustrate this concept I present a recent extreme example, the most extreme example of standard jaw angle implants I have yet seen. (And I have seen many) In this case a patient presented for a custom jawline implant after unsuccessful standard chin and jaw angle implants. He felt that they had very limited effect. His 3D CT scan showed a tilted chin implant placement, which is not rare, but oddly positioned jaw angle implants that were not on the bone.
From the submental view the jaw angle implants were not only off the bone but partially behind the posterior border of the jaw angles.
To replace these implants a custom jawline implant to augment the entire jawline was designed which would have a very different aesthetic outcome.
From the submental view its connected design provides a total jawline augmentation effect in a very controlled manner.
While both approaches to jaw augmentation exists, standard and custom implants, they are different in both their aesthetic effects and postoperative risks. As the visual comparison between them shows in this patient (removed implants vs the implant replacement), they are not really comparable method for aesthetic jaw augmentation.
Dr. Barry Eppley
World-Renowned Plastic Surgeon