Micro Fat Grafting

Microfat grafting is a time tested technique that uses your own fat cells to fill an area of deficiency. It is most frequently used as an adjunct to facial surgery to help rejuvenate the cheeks, midface and areas around the eye. Strategically placing fat into the face often produces subtle rejuvenation. As we age our faces lose the fullness of youth and the ideal substance to restore our own fat. Lips thin with age and microfat grafts to the lips can make them look more youthful as well. Microfat grafts have been very effective in rejuvenating hands as well, adding a little subcutaneous tissue in older hands in which the fatty layer has dissolved with time. Microfat grafts can also be utilized to fill deformities in extremities or the trunk caused by overaggressive liposuction, other injuries or ones with hereditary causes, but the procedure is less effective for these purposes. The problem with any microfat grafting procedure is the unpredictability of fat survival.

Harvesting of the fat is usually done from the abdomen or thighs using specially designed cannulas. Harvesting entails making an incision and aspirating fat from an area of excess – this is difficult to do in an office setting without saturating the donor area with local anesthesia, something preferably not done in order to enhance graft survival. The ideal technique uses a delicate harvesting and processing procedures with the patient sedated in an operating room, in order to enhance the viability of the transferred fat and long-term permanence. Fatty tissue is very fragile. Microfat harvesting, if done properly, allows a significant portion of the fat to survive the transplantation but a surgeon can NEVER predict in advance when the grafts will survive and when they will fail

Once placed, the body may accept the transferred fat with ingrowth of blood supply to the transplanted fragments, leading to a permanent correction – or the blood supply many not develop and the fat will dissolve in a few months, similar to what happens after a Restylane® or Juvederm® injection.

A common question is, "How long will the results of this procedure last?" The traditional fat grafting techniques had a very high, almost universal resorption rates, but this newer technique employing tiny cannulas and transplanting micrfat globules, increases the chance of success, with perhaps 50% or more of the fat lasting indefinitely (more likely to succeed in the face, less so in trunk and extremity deformities).

The following information has been prepared to familiarize you with facts about the surgical procedure known as microfat grafting.   You are requested to read this information thoroughly and to discuss any questions which might arise with your surgeon before you give your consent to have this procedure. You are also requested to keep this form as a reference in the postoperative period.