About Fat Transfer

Considering a Fat Transfer Procedure?

Looking at Progress in Sculpting Options

Patients and plastic surgeons have been challenged by body contour and volume issues for years. The most common cosmetic treatments—liposuction and fat transfer—are relatively new.

  • Liposuction: The ability for surgeons to sculpt your body became a reality when Liposuction was introduced to the U.S. in 1981. Using Liposuction or liposcuplture, plastic surgeons revealed new and more pleasing contours by removing localized fat deposits. If your primary goal is body contouring, then liposuction is a transformative procedure. No secondary use of fat was envisioned. Surgeons discarded harvested fat because patients and surgeons were focused on solving a single problem: changing objectionable body contours into desirable ones.
  •  Fat Transfer: The next advance in contouring was fat transfer. Over the past 10–15 years, fat transfer procedures became popular. The concept of sculpting expanded to include adding fat to create new and more pleasing contours. In other words, your fat was not just removed, but also re-purposed to solve volume issues in other areas of your body. Fat transfer became popularized as a “natural filler” because you used your own tissue rather than something artificial. Facial volumizing became its primary use.

While the concept of fat-grafting was great, the results of the first-generation techniques have been less than perfect. Multiple treatments are often necessary to achieve desired results making traditional fat transfer similar to man-made fillers in the lack of permanency and the need for secondary or repeat procedures.

Patient satisfaction with fat transfer (as reported on RealSelf.com) is the lowest of any of the cosmetic procedures, about 36%. That matches our experience prior to PureGraft™, which is that only about 30% of the transferred fat “takes” and remains for at least one year. The fat that does not take is re-absorbed, compromising the cosmetic result.

Improving Fat Transfer

Scientists and physicians around the world have been searching for new approaches to improve long-term results of fat transfer. They’ve focused on improving the process of harvesting, processing, and delivering your own cells more successfully.

Recently medical researchers determined that fat (adipose tissue) contains very high levels of stem and other regenerative cells. New technology allows those cells (after harvesting with liposuction) to be processed and/or concentrated and re-purposed. These cells stimulate enough new blood vessel growth to allow the transferred fat to “take” or survive at a much higher rate than was previously possible.

New technologies open new vistas and possibilities in cosmetic surgery, ranging from facial augmentation, treatment of acne scarring, leveling or filling of post-injury defects, and buttock augmentation.

What Does This Mean for You?

New fat transfer techniques means that you can have permanent filling of facial hollowing (with or without facial surgery) or natural buttock augmentation. Additionally, the cell-enriched fat can be used to fill post-surgical or traumatic contour defects with high probability of patient satisfaction.