There are a lot of options today for women interested in breast augmentation including fat transfer, which reuses your own fat taken out through liposuction and then injects that material back into your breast to provide fullness.
Dr. David Broadway is a cosmetic surgeon in Denver, CO and he performs breast augmentation procedures both in a traditional manner and with fat transfer. He says that most of his patients who have fat transfer have it done as an add on to a liposuction procedure. "It's almost always in combination with a liposuction of the abdomen or flanks. Rather than throwing away that fat, this is an opportunity to utilize it." Dr. Broadway also says that fat transfer breast augmentation can be used to deal with specific issues his patients want addressed such as a desire for more cleavage.
To remove the fat, Dr. Broadway uses Vaser lipo which delivers ultrasound energy to the fat, breaking it up so that it is easier to suction it out. The fat cells suffer minimal damage as the doctor adjusts the settings of the Vaser device to preserve the cells. "The lipo portion of the procedure is longer because I need to turn the Vaser down and I also need to turn the suction down, so that portion of the procedure is slowed up," says Dr. Broadway. Because the re-injection of the fat is an add-on procedure, it usually only costs between $1500 and $1600.
It is important to remember that there isn't going to be a huge change, in fact Dr. Broadway says that you will only see at best a cup size. It is also important to remember that only about 80% of the fat injected will survive, so some of the initial fullness will be lost. According to Dr. Broadway, many patients come back for future procedures. "It's not uncommon for me to go back. Let's say we did the flanks in one procedure with the fat transfer, then I'll come back and do a liposuction of the abdomen, and then do another fat transfer, and if she's wanting a lot of volume, we'll stage her. We'll give her 3-6 months between procedures to give that first fat transfer fat an opportunity to establish itself, and then we'll come back and augment that again."
Performing a fat transfer procedure does require that the physician slow down the liposuction portion of the procedure by about 30-60 minutes because the physician must be careful to preserve the integrity of the cells. After the fat is removed, the injection into the breast goes pretty quickly. Following surgery, you don't want to put much pressure on or allow much movement of the breast. but other than that recovery is pretty simple.
