fat grafting

• liposuction
• abdominoplasty
• miniabdominoplasty
• fat grafting
• arm lift “brachioplasty”

Fat can be used as a “filler” as well.  Fat grafting involves taking fat from one area of your body and transfering it to another.  Common areas to be filled are the cheek, lip, buttock, hands, and irregularties from prior liposuction work.

Fat grafting is not new.  We have used fat as a soft tissue filler for years.  The initial issue with fat grafting was poor survival by the newly moved fat.  When you take fat from one area of the body, like your abdomen, and put it in a new area, like your buttock, the fat needs to get a new blood supply to survive.  Fat cells are live cells.  They need oxygen and nutrients brought to them by the blood to survive.  Once in a new place, your body will develop new blood vessels to those cells over time.  The critical time is those first few days. 

What happens if fat dies?  Fat will do one of three things: melt away, harden, or form calcifications.  We plastic surgeons have refined our techniques.  We harvest the fat more gently with special cannulas.  We have studied the fat cells after harvest to see what we need to do to make the fat cells as healthy as possible before transfer.  We learned to transfer the fat in teeny tiny cannulas and amounts, essentially seeding the area with new fat, not doing large volumes at a time.  Grafting with large amounts at a time doesn’t work.  That fat has a higher rate of loss and issues. 

When done correctly, fat grafting takes time.  These are not procedures done in the office in half an hour like Restalyne or Juvederm.  This is an OR procedure.  It may require a touch up. 

Fat grafting is not good for everyone.  Some of my Bay Area patients are too thin- I have no place to harvest the fat from.  As for fat grafting to the breast, it is controversial.  Please see my blog entry: breast augmentation using fat: is it the future?