A ^Retired Plastic Surgeon's Notebook

Why fat transfer to the breast takes a lot of time and a lot of patience.

Fat transfer to the breast by Seattle Plastic Surgeon takes time and patience.

Fat transfer to the breast doesn’t seem like it would be a time consuming procedure but it is if done properly.    Here is what’s important and why fat transfer takes time and patience:

Patience - one of my few virtues.

Patience – one of my few virtues.

  •  The fat must be harvested very gently at a low vacuum.  This is a much slower process than regular liposuction.
  • The fat is often harvested from the posterior hip and buttock and lateral thigh area with the patient prone.  This means that a position change is necessary and that also takes time.
  • The fat must be handled with great care when it is transferred into injection syringes.  It’s important to have a patient and detail oriented assistant.
  • The fat must be injected in small aliquots into the breast, making sure to inject into several different layers.   This tedious technique pays off in the long run because it gives the fat a much better chance of survival compared to injecting big blobs of fat that probably won’t survive.  It has to do with blood supply.  That’s another blog topic.
  • The areas of injection vary with the shape of the breast.  When doing an augmentation with an implant, there is very little control of the breast shape but with fat transfer, the shape of the breast can be altered.  This also takes time and multiple visual assessments with the patient sitting up.

Some surgeons do not have the temperament to do procedures as tedious as fat transfer to the breast.  But I do!

Thanks for reading.  Dr. Lisa Lynn Sowder

 

 

Category: Breast Contouring, Fat Transfer to the Breast | Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

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