The estimated incidence of severe complications from dermal filler injections is very low—0.0001%—and the bulk of these complications occur following treatment in the glabella area, according to researchers at the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio. For the published study, “Complications Following Injection of Soft-Tissue Fillers” (Aesthetic Surgery Journal, August 2013), Cemile Nurdan Ozturk, MD, et al, searched the National Library of Medicine, the Cochrane Library, and Ovid MEDLINE as well as relevant articles published through August 2012.
They limited their review to “severe” events, including soft-tissue necrosis, filler embolization, visual impairment and anaphylaxis and identified 61 patients who experienced severe complications. (All fillers included were FDA-approved at the time of this study.)
The researchers reviewed data that included filler type, injection site, complication site, symptom interval, symptom of complication, time to therapy, modality of treatment and outcome. They write, “The most common injection site for necrosis was the nose (33.3%), followed by the nasolabial fold (31.2%). Blindness was most often associated with injection of the glabella (50%).”
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