Researchers randomly assigned 31 patients with wounds to the forehead to receive either Botox or a placebo injection right after the wounds were closed. Four of them were caused by trauma and the rest by surgical procedures.

The lesions were stitched using identical techniques and similar suture thread. The researchers took photographs right after each wound was closed, a week later and six months after that. The study appears in the August issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

Two facial surgeons unconnected with the study assessed the photographs without knowing which wounds had been treated with Botox and which with a placebo. They rated the final cosmetic outcomes on a 10-point scale.

Botox, or Botulinum toxin, is probably not needed for every facial wound. "This applies mainly to larger excisions," said Dr. Holger G. Gassner, the lead author of the study and now a fellow in facial plastic surgery at the University of Washington. "And it would certainly apply to traumatic wounds like car accidents and dog bites."

The authors recognize that a one-year follow-up may produce different results and that most of the wounds in the study were surgical incisions rather than accidental injuries. "For a hundred years we've been trying to reduce the effect of muscle pull on scarring," Gassner said. "Now we can eliminate it."

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