Breast Fat Transfer
Breast augmentation is one of the most popular plastic surgery procedures performed every year. Although the majority of the 300,000 or more cases of breast augmentation is performed with the use of breast implants, there is a growing number of individuals who prefer not to use an implant for their breast enhancement. For these patient, breast fat transfer or breast lipoaugmentation is a procedure that can effectively result in permanent breast augmentation using their own fat cells. Although breast fat transfer has been practiced in Japan, Europe and Canada for the past 20 years, many plastic surgeon did not embrace the practice until a few years ago. Because fat grafting can produce natural-looking results in women who undergo breast reconstruction or augmentation, at a 2008 American Society of Plastic Surgeons meeting, a panel of plastic surgeons revisited the idea and effectiveness of fat grafting for breast augmentation. It was after this meeting that Dr. Agha introduced breast fat grafting into his practice and later on that year, he created a matching cup size D breast in a patient who did not have much breast on one side.
Fat grafting involves harvesting fat from multiple areas of the body, such as the abdomen, waist, love-handles, thighs, or back via a small liposuction cannula. The fat is then washed, processed and refined away form any contaminating blood or fluids. Next, the fat is transferred into small syringes. A blunt infiltration cannula is then used to disperse minute droplets of fat over a wide-spread area in the overlying fatty layer of the breast and the underlying chest muscle. The fat is layered at different levels and shaped to obtain the desired contour. Fat cells for grafting can remain viable when it has been harvested and refined with minimal trauma, and has been injected as minute droplets.
Although, breast implants effectively augment breast sizes, they do not allow the ability to reshape the form or contour the breast. On the other hand, breast fat transfer does, by selectively augmenting and contouring any area of the breast from the skin to the chest wall, enable reshaping, augmenting, and correcting for asymmetry and deformity. Furthermore, breast and chest fat transfer can be employed for any corrections needed for chest wall deformities. Fat grafting makes it possible to improve the size and shape of a breast naturally. Usually, most of the fat is injected into the chest muscle and the breast fatty layer. Placing the injected fat into the superficial fatty layers of the breast helps to accomplish breast sculpting and reshaping.
There are several advantages and disadvantages to breast fat transfer, as compared to breast implants:
Advantages
- Fat grafting does not have known implant complications, such as implant leakage, deflation, migration or rippling, visible implants or capsular contracture.
- Fat grafting is able to correct breast shape, form and/or asymmetry. Breast implants only enhance the size of the breasts.
Disadvantages
- Fat grafting is time-consuming and the procedure can take 2 to 3 hours to perform. The majority of this time is needed inorder to liposuction and harvest enough fat for breast fat transfer.
- A large volume enhancement is not possible because only a limited amount of fat can be injected.
- Small cysts and/or calcifications can occur with small amounts of fat.
History of Breast Fat Transfer
Plastic surgeons have used autologous (your own) fat for over a hundred years to enlarge and/or reshape breasts. Liposuction has been the source of autologous fat used in breast augmentation since the early 1980s. In the last ten years, there have been scientific reports from around the world regarding the use of fat grafting for soft-tissue coverage in breast reconstruction, breast implants, breast reshaping due to deformity and as a treatment for radiation damage to the chest. These approaches have not been widely used, though, due to safety concerns, such as lumping and calcification, that may occur after fat injection.
