Hyaluronic acid for lower eyelid and tear trough rejuvenation: review of the literature

Periorbital aging has been identified as one of the most important aesthetic concerns of the face, so that lower eyelid rejuvenation has become a topic of major interest. Not every patient requires surgical blepharoplasty and selected lower eyelid problems and defects due to the aging process have been treated with hyaluronic acid (HA) gel injections since 2004. With this as the premise, the current work serves to review the published medical literature on the use of HA for lower eyelid and tear trough rejuvenation. A PubMed search was carried out in May 2020 using the search terms: “Tear trough [and] HA [and] filler”; “Tear trough [and] HA”; “HA [and] lower eyelid [and] filler”; “HA [and] lower eyelid”. A large number of relevant studies were identified. Surgical management remains the gold standard for lower eyelid rejuvenation but increasingly, non-surgical correction of selected deformities with HA injection may provide a reliable option based on the available evidence. Further, prospective randomized controlled studies and systematic reviews of the literature are nevertheless desirable and a standardized, widely accepted grading system of the deformity and its treatment outcomes will allow us to codify this procedure better.