Understanding Autologous Fat Transfer

The advantages of autologous free fat particles transplantation are that the graft is autologous tissue and its physical characteristics are far better than any artificial tissue substitute, allogeneic or xenogeneic materials, easy to take fat particles transplantation, abundant tissue sources, easy to operate; and the surgery is less traumatic, no obvious scar in the donor-recipient area, uniform and natural shape of the recipient area, no body shadow, repeatable injection, easy to shape. The disadvantages of autologous free fat particles transplantation are as follows: 1, the liquefaction absorption rate after fat filling can reach more than 30%, often requiring secondary surgery to fill; 2, the distribution of fat after filling is not uniform, and it is necessary to massage for 10 minutes after filling to make the fat cells as evenly distributed as possible; 3, fibrosis, fat necrosis, etc., too much fat or injection is too concentrated, and a large amount of fat accumulates together, which will cause insufficient blood supply leading to fat necrosis, dissolution and absorption, which will easily lead to infection, fibrosis or calcification, fat necrosis and other sequelae. Autologous transplantation of free fat particles has been widely used in the repair of various soft tissue defects and a variety of cosmetic treatments, generally used to fill subcutaneous depressed facial defects or deformities, more commonly used for lip augmentation, cheek augmentation, treatment of deep nasolabial folds, earlobe augmentation, etc. We generally do not advocate for breast augmentation, mainly because the larger the amount of fat injected at one time, the more it is absorbed.