Your team

Meet the Smile Line Team

This site is led and medically reviewed by Tongchun Mao, MD, who performs mid-face and facial aesthetic surgery here and who is responsible for the medical content. The other three physicians contribute what an assessment of this area often needs: the center’s surgical standards and its view of the mid-face when the fold is driven by descent, the assessment of how much of the line is held in the skin and what the surface can be expected to give back, and the dermatologic diagnosis of skin disease along the fold and of changes that have come on quickly.

Specialist profiles

Who reviews this content

Tongchun Mao (毛彤春)

Deputy Director & Head of Aesthetic Surgery · Vice Chief Physician, Licensed Aesthetic Attending · Lead Physician of This Site

Smile line assessment · movement, volume and descent · the mouth corner and the mid-face

Dr. Tongchun Mao is an aesthetic surgeon at Chongqing West District Hospital, where he is Deputy Director and Head of Aesthetic Surgery in its Plastic Surgery & Aesthetics Medical Center and the responsible physician for this site. He personally performs more than 700 operations a year, within hospital standards of assessment, anaesthesia and follow-up.

On this site his part is the sequence that comes before any treatment: looking at the fold in repose under light directed across the cheek, then mid-smile and held, then deciding how much of it is movement, how much is volume lost from the cheek, and how much is the cheek pad having moved down. He records the resting position of the mouth corner and the height it reaches on smiling before the muscles beside the mouth are considered at all, because that is the measurement any change in the smile is judged against. His stated discipline here is to name the proportion rather than the depth, and to say so when the fold is stable, both sides move equally, and the honest answer is that nothing needs doing.

Clinical focus

The fold read in repose and mid-smile, before any plan is made
Movement, lost volume and descent separated by proportion rather than by depth
The mouth corner at rest and the height it reaches on smiling as part of the decision
Restoring volume in the cheek rather than in the crease, and when that order reverses
Declining treatment where the fold is stable and a change in the smile would cost more than the line

The fold is the muscle; the smile is the price

Reducing the pull of the muscles beside the mouth softens the fold while they are quiet, and it can change how the corner lifts and how even the smile looks at the same time. Both outcomes are judged from the corner position you have before anything is given. A patient who needs the smile to stay exactly as it is should hear that this rung is not for them.

Shaoliang Wang (王韶亮)

Director, Plastic Surgery & Aesthetics Medical Center · Vice Chief Physician, Associate Professor, Doctor of Medicine

Center leadership · surgical assessment of the mid-face

Dr. Shaoliang Wang is Director of the Plastic Surgery & Aesthetics Medical Center at Chongqing West District Hospital. Within the team he provides the surgical perspective and the tertiary-hospital backstop — the assessment when an operation is the honest answer, and the hospital-level care for the rare complication that needs it.

Within this site his part is the standard the plan has to meet and the surgical view of the mid-face. Where the fold is being driven by descent, or where a previous treatment to the cheek has left the two sides uneven, the assessment is made within his part of the service.

Clinical focus

Center leadership and multidisciplinary case review
Surgical assessment when an operation is the honest answer to descent or excess skin
Hospital-based care for the rare complication that needs theatre-level management

Ke He (何锞)

Deputy Director & Head of Skin & Laser Aesthetics · Attending Physician, Licensed Aesthetic Attending

Skin and laser aesthetics · the surface and the etched line

Dr. Ke He is Deputy Director and head of skin and laser aesthetics within the Plastic Surgery & Aesthetics Medical Center at Chongqing West District Hospital. Within the team her role is the device and injectable assessment, and the honest referral when a problem needs an operation rather than a needle.

Within this site her part is the component that lives in the skin: how much of the fold is still visible in repose, what the surface can be expected to give back, which of the resurfacing categories suits the skin type, and the preparation and aftercare around any of them.

Clinical focus

Device and injectable assessment before any treatment plan
Staged planning judged against standardised photographs
Honest referral when a problem needs an operation rather than a needle

Yongbo Jia (贾勇波)

Deputy Director & Head of Dermatology · Vice Chief Physician, Licensed Aesthetic Attending

Dermatology · skin assessment and a fold that is new

Dr. Yongbo Jia is a dermatologist within the Plastic Surgery & Aesthetics Medical Center at Chongqing West District Hospital. Within the team his role is medical skin assessment — diagnosing and managing pigment and barrier conditions, and treating skin that a device or an injection has irritated.

Within this site his part is the fold that is not an appearance problem at all: skin disease along the line, a lump or a sore that has not healed, and the medical causes that have to be identified before anything cosmetic is planned.

Clinical focus

Medical skin assessment behind injectable treatment plans
Diagnosis and management of pigment and barrier conditions
Dermatologic care of skin after irritation or a delayed reaction

Start with whether the line is there at rest

Arrange an assessment. We look at the fold in repose and on smiling, work out how much of it is movement, how much is cheek volume and how much is descent, and say plainly which options would change it and which would not.

Contact the Team