How can fat injections be used as dermal fillers?

Some patients may want to consider fat injections, which use fat harvested from the patient's own body which can then be re-injected to enhance facial fullness, fill creases or build up shallow contours.

How fat injections are administered

Fat injection requires a more extensive procedure than "off-the-shelf" soft tissue fillers.

A "donor area" must be determined (such as the abdomen or buttocks) and liposuction is used to extract the fat. The suctioned fat can then be transferred to the face, as a graft.

The grafted fat then has to redevelop a blood supply in order to survive. About 50% of the fat injected will survive, and the surviving fat will last forever.

Fat injection results

In the face, most of the transferred fat usually survives, but the results can be a bit less predictable. Typically, multiple fat transfer procedures will be needed to achieve desired results.

The use of fat transfer involves additional discomfort in the donor area. This is a minor surgical procedure that can be performed in the surgeon's treatment room or in an operating room.