Turning Back the Clock with Lip Lift: Quantifying Perceived Age Reduction Using Artificial Intelligence
Alexandra R. Gordon, BA1, Jillian S. Schreiber, MD1, Sofia C. Tortora, MS, DDS2, Jonathan B. Levine, DMD3, Oren M. Tepper, MD1.
1Montefiore Medical Center, bronx, NY, USA, 2SUNY Downstate, Brooklyn, NY, USA, 3NYU College of Dentistry, New York, NY, USA.
Introduction: The lip lift is an increasingly popular procedure for peri-oral rejuvenation. While aesthetically pleasing, implications of shortening the upper lip height on perceived age have not been well characterized. This study utilizes artificial intelligence (AI) as a tool for quantifying changes in perceived age due to lip lift procedures.
Methods: Photographs of female faces were used to simulate incremental lip lifts for analysis (n=14). A traditional bullhorn lip lift was simulated at 3, 5, and 7mm excisions using Adobe Photoshop. To control for variations in dental anatomy, visible teeth were removed. The simulated images were then analyzed using AI software to determine the patient’s perceived age for each condition.
Results: Patient photos were simulated and analyzed in fourteen women ages 37 to 63 years old (average, 51). At baseline, AI calculated age to be 41.9 ± 5.5 years old. Perceived age decreased in all patients with a simulated lip lift. Perceived age decreased by 3.2±3.1 (P=0.002), 6.8 ±3.3 (P<.001), and 7.7±4.4 (P<.001) percent for 3, 5, and 7mm lip lift respectively. When stratified based on age, the impact of lip lifting on age reduction was most profound for the age group <35 years old (6.9, 10.3, 17.2% respectively). Age groups >35 years old demonstrated a less profound impact (2.7, 4.5, and 6.3%; 3.9, 8.2, and 9.2%; and 2.1, 5.9, and 5.1% respectively).
Conclusion: AI software demonstrated a reduction in perceived age for incremental lip lifting procedures. The largest percent decrease in age reduction was found in patients <35 years old. The utility of this AI software may be expanded to analyze perceived age for other procedures such as blepharoplasty and neck lift. Additionally, future studies may combine multiple aesthetic procedures to assess how each combination reduces age in comparison to each procedure in isolation.
Figure 1: Simulated Lip Lift with Indirect Technique. A selection of upper lip lift is displaced upward using the (a) indirect technique to create a (b) 3mm lip lift. For the analysis, the teeth were removed from the mouth to create a white space. a b 
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