Long-term soft tissue changes after orthognathic surgery.

The assumption is often mode that the soft tissue changes resulting from orthognathic surgery have stabilized by 6 to 12 months, but longer-term changes may differ from the normal aging process observed in nonsurgical patients. Soft tissue changes that occurred between 1 year and 3 to 5 years post-surgery in 79 orthognathic surgery patients who had received either a bilateral sagittal split osteotomy or a Le Fort I osteotomy in conjunction with a bilateral sagittal split osteotomy were compared to those experienced by a group of 36 patients who had received only orthodontic treatment. Although soft tissue changes did occur, there were no significant differences between average annualized soft tissue changes in the three treatment groups.