Assessment of Change in Apparent Age After Upper Blepharoplasty

Background: Blepharoplasty is the most common cosmetic facial operation performed by members of The Aesthetic Society. (Over 104,000 of these procedures were performed in 2022.) Patients who request blepharoplasty often cite that their eyelid appearance makes them appear fatigued and older than their years.

Studies evaluating objective reduction in age are few and the results are varied. A study in the opthalmology literature of 67 patients who underwent functional upper blepharoplasty showed a decrease in apparent age of 1.8 years after surgery. [Lu et al. 2024] A second study of 12 ophthalmology patients demonstrated a decrease in apparent age of 9.6 years. [Sönmez et al. 2024] One small plastic surgery study of 10 female patients showed an apparent age decrease of 1.04 years after upper blepharoplasty. [Bater et al. 2018] Others have performed similar studies of changes in apparent age after varied facial rejuvenation surgeries without isolating blepharoplasty. [Bater et al. 2017, Chauhan et al. 2012] Importantly, these studies did not use the validated apparent age metric.

We hypothesize that isolated bilateral upper blepharoplasty will be associated with a decrease in apparent age. We believe that the current research on this topic is a good foundation but also believe that surgical results from a plastic surgeon using a previously validated metric are necessary to definitively assess blepharoplasty’s effect on apparent age. We hope that our findings will also prove valuable for patient education.