Fat injection - Lipofilling
Lipofilling (or structural fat grafting) is now an established technique. It uses patients’ own fat as a permanent filler to add volume to soft tissues. The fat is harvested with thin cannulas, through small incisions, using the conventional liposuction technique. After washing and filtering, the isolated fat cells are injected into the deficient area(s). In addition to adding volume, micro fat transfer reduces scarring, improving the quality and elasticity of the overlying skin. Its mechanism of action is not yet fully understood but by repeated clinical application, this technique has demonstrated its safety and efficacy.
Lipofilling is used in soft tissue augmentation, body contouring, facial rejuvenation, facial reconstruction (e.g. Romberg’s disease) and breast surgery (both reconstructive and aesthetic). Another term for this procedure is autologous fat grafting.
Results and Benefits:
Benefits:
Who Is Candidate?
Any person that has a volume deficit in any part of the body. The person should have enough fat available to fill up the deficit.
Technique We Use:
Lipofilling can be performed under either local or general anaesthesia. Local anaesthesia is only used when small volumes of fat are required. If this procedure is combined with other procedures, it will mostly be done under general anaesthesia.
The donor site is always infiltrated with a mixture of local anaesthesia and adrenaline to reduce postoperative discomfort and bruising.
Liposuction—The fat can be taken by means of liposuction from any part of the body that has a sufficient amount of fat, in most cases this will be the stomach or the upper legs, but it can also be taken from the inner knees, the thighs, the buttocks or love handles.
After injecting local anaesthesia, which minimizes bleeding in this particular area, a very small incision is made and fat is aspirated using a blunt needle with multiple perforations and a special aspirator. The small incision is closed with one dissolvable stitch.
Filtration—The fat is washed and filtered to separate blood, oil and local anaesthetic from the fat cells.
Injection of the fat— If the procedure is performed under local anaesthesia, the recipient site is injected with a minimal amount of local anaesthesia after which the fat cells are injected with very fine cannulas. If the procedure is performed under general anaesthesia, no local anaesthetics will be injected as it has been observed that the local anaesthetics have a negative effect on the survival rate of the injected fat. The trick of the fat transfer is to inject only a very small amount of fat with each pass of the cannula. This way, the grafted fat will be in direct contact with the surrounding tissues which allows the fat to grow in the vessels really fast. As a result, the fat can survive.
Fat gun: Fat Gun for the injection of fat. We use a fat gun. This is an innovative instrument allows for stady accurat & precise injection of fat in drops with a diameter of only one mm
FAT-gun— For the injection of the fat, we use a FAT-gun. This is an innovative instrument allows the steady, accurate and precise injection of the fat in drops with a diameter of only one mm, which has been proven to be the optimal diameter of the transferred fat. With this instrument, not only the survival rate of the fat is higher, the degree of bruising and swelling is far lower as well.
The amount of fat that survives depends on the part of the body where it is injected and differs from person to person. It is our impression that on average 50% of the fat that has been injected is still there after six months. Therefore, we may do some overcorrection during the operation.
After six months we can speak of a final result because after that we do not see much change anymore. How the transplanted fat will behave over the following years/ decades is still unknown. However, it is likely that the normal ageing process will continue and that the fat slowly goes away. On the other hand, we also expect that the difference made by the transplantation will last very long.
After six months, if necessary, another fat graft may be performed until the desired effect has been obtained. Repetition is needed for about 20% of our patients.