Fat Grafting
What is fat grafting?
Fat grafting is the transfer of fat from one part of the body to the other. Fat is harvested by liposuction from an area where there is excess fat before being strategically injected into a new location. As the procedure uses your own body fat, new blood vessels naturally form within the injected and integrated fat. Not all the fat cells will survive the fat transfer process.
What are the benefits of fat grafting?
The main benefit of fat grafting in isolation is that it is your own tissue and doesn’t have the risk profile that comes with implants or foreign material.
Are there any issues with fat grafting for breast augmentation?
The main issues with fat grafting are that it is unpredictable and resorption of the fat overtime is an occurs. Patients often will have greater than 50 % resorption of fat graft at 6 months post-surgery. Often the surgeon will need to inject fat on multiple different occasions to compensate for this, which becomes costly. This occurs because the fat that is removed is devoid of its blood supply and needs to regain its blood supply from the new location it is placed.
Because of this fat grafting is mostly used as an adjunct (addition) to other breast surgery and rarely in isolation.
Can fat grafting be used for augmentation alone?
Yes, fat grafting can be used on its own for augmentation, however, as mentioned it has its limitations. Fat grafting will allow a patient to enhance breast volume by roughly one cup size in a single operation at best.