The Medicolegal Challenges of Facial Plastic Surgery: A Systematic Review


Mussabekova S.A. Menchisheva Y. Morillas Á.V.
1 September 2025Oxford University Press

Aesthetic Surgery Journal
2025#45Issue 9973 - 984 pp.

Facial plastic surgery is associated with a growing number of medicolegal challenges, particularly because of postoperative complications and patient dissatisfaction. This systematic review aimed to examine the medicolegal challenges associated with facial plastic surgery, focusing on postoperative complications, patient dissatisfaction, litigation cases, and medicolegal risk factors. A comprehensive literature search was conducted in MEDLINE (National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, MD), Embase (Elsevier, Amsterdam, the Netherlands), Cochrane Library (Wiley, Hoboken, NJ), PubMed (National Library of Medicine), Web of Science (Clarivate Analytics, Philadelphia, PA), SCOPUS (Elsevier), and Google Scholar (Alphabet Inc., Mountain View, CA) from 2020 to 2024. Medicolegal cases related to facial aesthetic surgeries were included. In total, 27 studies met the inclusion criteria. The leading causes of litigation included unsatisfactory aesthetic outcomes, failure of informed consent, technical surgical errors, and inadequate postoperative follow-up. The highest litigation rates were reported in countries with high volumes of plastic surgery cases and stringent regulations. This review highlights the increasing medicolegal burden in aesthetic surgery. Informed consent, postoperative monitoring, and technical precision are crucial for mitigating risks and preventing malpractice claims. The study synthesized medicolegal trends across all major facial aesthetic surgeries. It incorporated a global perspective, analyzing litigation data from over 10 countries, which is uncommon in most similar studies.



Text of the article Перейти на текст статьи

Department of Morphology, School of Medicine, Karaganda Medical University, Karaganda, Kazakhstan
Department of Life Course and Population Sciences, King’s College London, London, United Kingdom
Department of Analytical, Environmental and Forensic Sciences, King’s College London, London, United Kingdom

Department of Morphology
Department of Life Course and Population Sciences
Department of Analytical

10 лет помогаем публиковать статьи Международный издатель

Книга Публикация научной статьи Волощук 2026 Book Publication of a scientific article 2026