Cheek Sagging in Daegu — Is There a Treatment That Deals With the Cheek Alone?

The conclusion, first

“Where in Daegu is good at lifting for cheek sagging?” is a question that cannot be settled from public data. And in this case there is one further circumstance — there is no scale to compare against in the first place. Within the range we checked, the lower part of the face has several validated five-point scales. A jawline sagging scale (digital validation by 12 experts · live validation by 5, inter-rater κ 0.76 to 0.81), a chin projection scale, a nasolabial fold scale (73 subjects · three board-certified raters), and a wrinkle severity scale (five grades, in use since the 1990s). And yet we could not find a validated scale that measures sagging of the “cheek” itself. So improvement in cheek sagging is always judged by neighbouring measures — has the nasolabial fold grown shallower · has the jawline tidied up · does the overall impression look better. And the thickness of the layers in the cheek changes with age · sex · body build — in the ultrasound records of 200 people, the superficial fat grew thinner with age and was thicker in women than in men. So we do not speak of “cheek lifting” as though it were a single product; we first separate out what it is that has changed in the cheek.

The order we actually work through in consultation

1. We begin by telling you that there is no scale for the cheek

The bottom row is the backbone of this article. There is a scale attached to the midface, but what that scale measures is the coarseness of the texture, not sagging. “We could not find one” does not mean “it does not exist”; it means that we did not reach it. That absence may not be an accident, though — the jawline and the nasolabial fold are contour lines, so their boundaries can be caught in a photograph, whereas the cheek is a surface, and it appears to be for that reason that its boundary is hard to define.

2. We separate out what it is that has changed in the cheek

Change in the cheek is usually one of three things — the deep cheek fat having deflated, the superficial fat having moved downwards, or the skin having grown thinner so that the structures beneath show through. The first is not solved by a tightening treatment. If anything, tightening may make the face look leaner. This distinction is the first thing we do at a consultation, and if it forks wrongly here every subsequent choice goes astray.

3. We check what the thickness of the layers is in that person

In a study retrospectively reviewing the layer structure of the cheek and submental area in the ultrasound records of 200 people, the superficial fat grew thinner with age (particularly in front of the ear · the lower cheek · the submental area), and women had thicker superficial fat than men in front of the ear and in the lower cheek. And the superficial and deep boundaries of the fascia lay more superficially in older, male and lean people. That is, the same setting does not reach the same layer. In the material measuring 30 cadavers with a three-dimensional scanner as well, superficial fat was 5.2 ± 1.9 mm, a standard deviation of 36% of the mean.

4. We also introduce the view that the cheek and the nasolabial fold move as one

There is an anatomical view that as the retaining ligaments of the face loosen, laxity of the zygomatic ligament leads to deepening of the nasolabial fold and laxity of the masseteric ligament to jowling, and a technique of injecting along a calculated vector on that premise has been reported. That report, however, is a case series of 45 people with no control group, judged only by global assessment at three months. We say alongside it that this is material of a low grade of evidence.

5. So this is the order we decide in

(1) We separate out whether it has deflated, come down or grown thin → (2) we divide the cases where a tightening class is right from those where a supporting class is right → (3) we check that person’s layer thickness → (4) since there is no scale that measures the cheek itself, we settle in advance what we will look at instead in order to judge (for instance: photographs under the same lighting and at the same angle, the nasolabial fold grade, the jawline grade) → (5) and on top of that we decide together. Price and discounts enter nowhere in this order; costs are explained separately at the consultation.

Five things worth asking at a consultation

These are questions you can ask at any clinic. If the answers are specific and the place says it does not know what it does not know, that helps a judgement.

1. “Has my cheek deflated, or has it come down?” — the classes for these two are opposites.
2. “What do you judge improvement in cheek sagging by?” — since there is no scale for the cheek itself, a measure to look at instead has to be settled.
3. “Do you check my superficial fat thickness before setting the parameters?” — it differs with age · sex · body build.
4. “Is there any chance tightening will make me look leaner?” — where it has deflated, there is.
5. “How many people and what design is that evidence?” — whether it is a case series or a controlled trial.

What is confirmed / what is inferred / what we could not confirm / material pointing the other way

Where this article was written

• Miso Clinic, Daegu · 4F Bombom Building, 125 Dongdeok-ro, Jung-gu, Daegu, Republic of Korea (near Kyungpook National University Hospital station)
• Director Lee Chi-Hak · Tel. 053-428-2700
• This column was written by the director and reviewed in September 2026.

This article was written not to recommend a particular treatment but to set out the extent of the data needed for a decision. Judgement about an individual condition requires examination, and this article does not substitute for medical care. As companion pieces it helps to read facial sagging in Daegu — starting with which layer the treatment works on and nasolabial folds in Daegu — is it a matter of smoothing a wrinkle.

Frequently asked questions

Who wrote this

References

1. Jawline sagging and chin projection scales — Pooth R, Prinz V, Cajkovsky M, Green JB, Hernandez CA, Pavicic T, Mueller DS, Sattler S, Klepetko H, Fabi SG, Day D, Suwanchinda A, Cotofana S, Frank K, Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology 2022;21(2):600–607, PMID 34902199, DOI 10.1111/jocd.14661. 12 experts for digital validation · 5 for live validation. For the jawline sagging scale, intra-rater κ 0.88, inter-rater 0.76 to 0.81. A manufacturer’s name appears in the name of the scale, and it should be read with the conflict of interest in mind.
2. Nasolabial fold scale — Lorenc ZP, Smith S, Bass LS, Bank D, Weiss R, Canfield D, D’Alessandro BM, Cramer LM, Journal of Drugs in Dermatology 2024;23(1):1319–1324, PMID 38206141, DOI 10.36849/JDD.7316. 73 subjects · three board-certified raters · two sessions two weeks apart. What the scale measures is “the presence of a depression and a shadow.”
3. The prototype of the wrinkle severity scale — Day DJ, Littler CM, Swift RW, Gottlieb S, American Journal of Clinical Dermatology 2004;5(1):49–52, PMID 14979743, DOI 10.2165/00128071-200405010-00007. 5 raters · 30 photographs of the lower face. Inter-rater agreement 67.7% · 72.3% (weighted κ 0.75 · 0.78).
4. Ultrasound material on the layer structure of the lower face — Kwon SH, Ahn GY, Lew BL, Shin JW, Na JI, Huh CH, Dermatologic Surgery 2022;48(5):527–531, PMID 35093961, DOI 10.1097/DSS.0000000000003393. 200 people, retrospective (mean 41.1 ± 13.7 years). The superficial fat grew thinner with age, and in front of the ear and in the lower cheek women had thicker superficial fat than men. The superficial and deep boundaries of the fascia lay more superficially in older, male and lean people.
5. Thickness of facial skin and superficial fat — Lee KW, Yoon JH, Kim JS, Hu KS, Kim HJ, Clinical Anatomy 2021;34(7):1050–1058, PMID 33583088, DOI 10.1002/ca.23726. 30 fixed cadavers from Korea and Thailand · three-dimensional scanner. Skin 2.1 ± 0.4 mm, superficial fat 5.2 ± 1.9 mm. This is fixed cadaveric material.
6. An injection technique from the standpoint of the retaining ligaments — Cohen S, Artzi O, Mehrabi JN, Heller L, Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology 2020;19(8):1948–1954, PMID 32543088, DOI 10.1111/jocd.13546. A case series of 45 people · no control group · global assessment at three months. It is a report of a technique on the premise that laxity of the zygomatic ligament contributes to deepening of the nasolabial fold and laxity of the masseteric ligament to jowling.
7. Legislation on medical advertising — Article 56(2) of the Korean Medical Service Act. It prohibits advertising by means of accounts of treatment experience, comparison with other medical institutions, superlative expressions and the like. This is why this column carries no expressions such as “good at” or “the best,” no comparison with other medical institutions, and no prices or discounts.