A fat grafting procedure, or fat injection, transfers fat from areas in which you have excess fat, such as the outer thighs, and injects it into areas that may be lacking in volume, such as your face, lips, nose, hands, breasts or buttocks. There are a number of major benefits of the fat graft procedure:

A fat graft procedure is an option if;

• You have facial areas that appear creased and sunken
• You desire more permanent correction than is provided by temporary fillers
• You wish to improve your body contour, revise scars, fill bodily depressions and rejuvenate your hands and face
• You require breast reconstruction, to fill in contour irregularities or hide obvious signs of breast implants

Key Benefits of Fat Grafting

• Using fat from your own body, replacing like with like, as opposed to dermal fillers, means there is a reduced risk of an allergic reaction
• The procedure is non-invasive and safe
• Results are natural and long lasting

Fat Grafting Procedures

Facial volume restoration with fat grafting

If you have facial creases, such as laugh lines, smile lines, and crow’s-feet, fat can be removed from your abdomen, thighs, or other areas and be injected into your face. Acne scars and sunken areas of the face, lips, and cheeks can also be filled in. We can even use grafted fat to minimise lines between your nose and mouth, correct skin depressions or indentations and minimize forehead wrinkles.

Lip enhancement with fat grafting

This is a more permanent alternative to regular lip fillers to plump the lips

Nasal contouring with fat grafting

A fat graft can be used to contour the nose and is an minimally invasive alternative to a surgical rhinoplasty

Buttock augmentation with fat grafting

Many people who desire a fuller, more rounded buttock will opt for a “Brazilian butt lift,” which uses fat transfer to provide a more curvaceous buttock without the use of an implant. Liposuction is commonly used to both sculpt the surrounding area and collect the autologous fat to be injected.

Hand rejuvenation with fat grafting

Fat grafting into your hands is effective for adding volume, “plumping up” wrinkled areas, covering underlying vessels and tendons and improving the quality of your skin over time.

Breast augmentation

If you desire a modest increase in breast size, you are a good candidate for fat grafting to the breast, but your breasts should already have a nice shape and good skin tone. If you have poor skin, sagging breasts, or want a significant increase in breast size, breast augmentation with fat transfer is not for you. The problem with only using fat for breast enhancement lies in getting large volumes of fat to predictably “take.”

Breast implants plus fat grafting

If your breast shape needs optimizing during a breast implant procedure, fat grafting can be useful. If you have residual breast irregularities after undergoing breast augmentation with implants, the irregularities can be filled in with fat to produce a smooth contour and an optimal shape.

Breast reconstruction with fat grafting

If you have breast defects following lumpectomy for breast cancer, fat grafting is an effective method for filling in these defects. Fat grafting is also an option for total breast reconstruction following mastectomy; however, to achieve sufficient breast volume, this is usually a multistage process that requires at least two to four sequential fat grafting procedures.

How the Procedure is performed

Fat is harvested from one part of your body, washed and purified, and then carefully reinjected with specially designed needles into the areas that need augmentation. It may be necessary to repeat the fat grafting procedure several times to achieve the desired result. Fat grafting can be explained as a three-stage process:

Harvesting

We will agree with you a site for fat removal and will inject it with a local anaesthetic. We then create a small incision in the area for fat removal and, using a sterile technique, insert a cannula connected to a syringe to carefully extract fat (liposuction).

Purification and transfer

Once enough fat is obtained from the donor area, we process it to prepare the fat cells for transfer to small syringes that will be used for fat injection. Purification may require the use of a centrifuge to spin the fat or a filtration process to remove impurities prior to injection.

Placement

The area designated to receive the graft will then be prepared. We insert a needle or cannula into the incision point of the site being augmented. The injection needle is usually passed in and out of the areas to be augmented multiple times. Each time the needle or cannula is withdrawn, a line of fatty tissue parcels is carefully deposited in natural tissue planes. This process is repeated until the desired correction has been achieved, creating a grid of grafted fat. We may massage the grafted areas to create a satisfactory contour and place a dressing or bandage over the grafted area.

This is essentially a scarless procedure. The only scars associated that may result are from liposuction, which is used to remove fat from the donor site. If there are any this would be minimal and fade over time.