Using ultrasound imaging to detect important blood vessels before dermal filler.

As the use of dermal fillers has grown in popularity around the world, so has the incidence for certain complications, especially when procedures are performed with little knowledge of what lies under the skin where injections are made. Most importantly for the injector is knowing that there is significant variation of the path of major blood vessels of the face. Over 60% of all people have blood vessels in the face that are different to standard textbook teaching.

The danger to the patient is injection of dermal filler into one of these vessels. The outcome then causes a blockage of the vessel, cutting of vital oxygen to other tissues or travelling to major organs such as the eye, brain lung or heart. Doctors around the world have searched for ways to reduce this risk, mainly by by using ultrasound imaging to map the vessels in the vicinity of the area to be injected. At epiclinic we use ultrasound imaging prior to injecting dermal fillers, to reduce the chances of such injury occurring. Dr Michael Molton who has been using and teaching ultrasound imaging of the face blood vessels for more than four years. Dr Molton says ‘I cannot imagine ever injecting a dermal filler without knowing what lies directly under the skin where I am working. To me, it is like driving without a seatbelt, you never know when a car accident could suddenly happen, even if not your fault and I think of ultrasound imaging precisely in that way when injecting dermal filler’.

Dr Molton is trained in ultrasound imaging of the face with Dr Leonie Schelke, at the Erasmus Hospital Dermal Filler Complication Clinic in Rotterdam, Netherlands. The Complication Unit operates one day per week treating patients, many of whom come from neighbouring European Union countries, who suffered complications from permanent and temporary substances injected in the face and body including the buttocks, legs and abdomen.