I feel like a broken record.
I got an email today from a patient looking for breast augmentation using fat. I DO think this will be a good, viable way to augment the breast in the future. (Except for you super skinny athletic Bay Area women- You don’t have any fat to harvest. Start eating ice cream.)
The successful doctors who have good results and have been doing fat transfer to the breast for years, do a lot of prep work prior to the procedure. This entails usually the Brava system (a suction cup thing you put on your breast) for a month prior to the procedure and a month afterwards. !!!!! Why would they do this? Why would you subject yourself to suction cups on the breast nightly? Are we auditioning for a Lady Gaga video? No.
Fat must survive when you move it.
We call this fat “take.” If I transfer 500cc of fat, how much will be alive when I look at it later? 400cc? 300cc? And that “later” needs to be a point months down the road, otherwise you can’t tell what is swelling and nonviable fat.
What happens if the fat does not “take’? Oooh. This is where it will do bad things.
- calcify (BAD in breasts. that is what we monitor to look for breast cancer!)
- oil cysts
- lumps
- hardening
- melt away
This whole topic just is a thorn in my side. I am concerned and dismayed by marketing gone amuk. I was invited to go to a “revolutionary new water assisted liposuction fat transfer workshop.” They are being featured on every news program out there. When I saw the promotional photo, I immediately did not want to go. Why? Because in their promo , their best photo to promote their workshop, the woman has swelling and bruise still there.
This tells me this woman is only weeks out from surgery. This tells me that months out from surgery the results don’t look as good, otherwise they would show me that photo.
So AAARGH. I went to the water lipo website, where they touted how there was no anesthesia, no downtime, no pain, blah blah blah. I am mad. I feel they are deceiving women. Where is their medical integrity? Where are their photos of mammograms on these women? Where are their one year follow ups? Why are they marketing to non plastic surgeons? To non surgeons?
I speak of this from a position of knowledge. I DID go to a fat grafting workshop, put on by my colleagues, Board Certified Plastic Surgeons from all over the world. These doctors have been refining their techniques and doing massive studies, following the patients for years afterwards including with MRI and mammograms. I think they are close to a protocol of how best to do fat grafting.
Please be wary. I am not doing fat grafting to the breast yet because I want to see the final data on HOW to do it safely, predictably, and effectively. I want the studies to come out first to make sure it is safe, particularly with the rates of breast cancer.
Be wary of those with big promises and little integrity.