Fat Grafting and fat transfer; what is it?

  Most people think of fat as something to be gotten rid of!  That's why we diet and exercise, buy supportive undergarments to conceal our bulges and lament over our inability to wear the really cool clothes.

Fat grafting and fat transfer mean the same thing and refer to the harvesting of fat from one part of the body where it is excessive, and injecting it into another part of the (same) body where it is needed.  Grafting of tissues, such as skin, bone or organs, is not a particularly new concept, and for the most part these tissues are hardy and graft well.  Fat grafting however is a relatively new procedure primarily due to the fact it has taken the medical community a while to come up with reliable methods or fat transfer with greater retention of the grafted fat.  Fat grafts are first harvested, then washed, concentrated and then injected.  Fat is a relatively fragile tissue as compared to bone or skin.  Fat cells are easily damaged by the process of harvesting and again when the fat graft is injected.  Fat cells are delicate and the fat cell wall is susceptible to rupture with high positive or negative pressures.  Broken fat cells do not survive.

The learning curve is challenging, but is now commonplace for plastic surgeons to use fat grafts successfully in a large variety of applications.

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