What are the indications for either a Deep Plan or a SMAS?

Great questions! Choosing between deep plane facelift and SMAS facelift, for most surgeons, it probably mostly dependent on the technique they were taught in training. Like several have mentioned, there may not be solid evidence that one technique is overall superior to the other. However, for each individual patient, there like is a superior technique that will produce the best results. In my practice, I often a perform hybrid facelift procedure, incorporating some deep plane facelift technique as well as some SMAS facelift technique, depending on how much aging is present. The key point to understand is that, there must be dissection of the SMAS layer in order to produce long term, significant and permanent results. You will get a good idea of the degree of improvement expected by each surgeon by reviewing their before and after photos. Keep in mind that many patients undergo complimentary procedures, such as eyelid surgery, fat transfer, forehead and brow lifting, lip lift and facial implants, that can dramatically improve the overall result. To assess the result of the facelift, pay close attention to the improvement of sagging skin in the neck, definition along the jawline and nasolabial fold. I hope this information is helpful.

Greetings from Washington DC!This is a great question and is one that I get asked frequently. There are many semantic issues in the realm of facelift surgery and when you add additional trademarked names, it gets even more confusing. There was a time that I was offering SMAS lifts as my "mini-lift" and reserving deep plane lifts for patients with more significant jowling or laxity. However, after seeing the superior results of the the deep plane lift, I completely stopped offering the mini-lift/SMAS option. As you may already know, there are facial and neck ligaments that are holding that SMAS/platysma layer in place. If they aren't released in the deep plane, those anchor points are just going to be continuously fighting the sutures that are suspending the SMAS layer. Eventually those ligaments will limit the longevity of your lift and may hinder proper repositioning of the SMAS layer in the first place. There is a marked "release" that can be felt in the SMAS layer during my deep place facelifts once those ligaments are released. In my opinion, I would not be able to move the SMAS back to where it used to be, without that deeper dissection. The degree of skin dissection tends to be very similar so the recovery tends to be about the same.
I hope that helps! Wishing you the best!Dr. SitaparaChevy Chase Facial Plastic Surgery

Most surgeons tend to be well-versed and most comfortable in one of the two techniques, based on their experience, and use this in all or almost all of their patients. There are great facelift surgeons who do some type of deep plane facelift, and there are great facelift surgeons who do SMAS facelifts. They each have relative upsides and downsides. I trained in both and have done both in my own patients. I prefer a SMAS facelift in most patients, especially with significant skin excess or jowls, for a number of reasons. It allows you to undermine and redrape the skin more, allows you to directly excise jowl fat, and keeps the deep facial fat compartments intact for the purposes of fat grafting (which is also a crucial step in most facelifts).