Fat Transfer Breast Augmentation
Fat transfer breast augmentation is a cosmetic procedure that uses liposuction to withdraw fat cells from some body areas and inject them into your breasts. The body area from which the fat cells are harvested is referred to as the donor site, which is usually your flanks and abdomen.
Dr. Darren Smith, MD, FACS
Browse Topics
Fat Transfer Breast Augmentation
There are many reasons why a woman may have smaller breasts than she would like. Some of the more common causes of hypomastia (small breasts) are: genetics, loss of breast volume with age and loss of breast volume with weight loss. Regardless of the cause, many women have achieved their desired breast size thanks to significant advancements in cosmetic surgery. While many women opt for breast implants, other NYC women have gone for a natural breast enhancement alternative: fat transfer to the breasts.
What is Fat Transfer?
An autologous fat transfer is a cosmetic surgery to move fat from one part of a patient’s body to another. It aims to remove unwanted fat from a specific area, like the thighs or tummy, and use it to increase the size of other areas, such as the buttocks or breasts.
What is Breast Augmentation?
Breast augmentation is a cosmetic procedure that aims to enlarge, change the shape of, or improve the texture of a woman’s breast. The standard techniques used include fat grafting and breast implants, or a combination of the two
What is Fat Transfer Breast Augmentation?
Fat transfer breast augmentation is a cosmetic procedure that uses liposuction to withdraw fat cells from some body areas and inject them into your breasts. The body area from which the fat cells are harvested is referred to as the donor site, which is usually your flanks and abdomen.
An increasing number of women today are opting for fat transfer to the breast. These are mostly patients who desire natural-looking breasts after a breast enhancement procedure. Also, women who desire a modest increase in breast volume and want to avoid the maintenance associated with implants often choose fat transfer as their preferred method.
Fat Transfer Breast Augmentation Procedure
Before anything else, schedule a consultation with a Dr. Darren Smith, a top board-certified plastic surgeon in New York City. During this consultation, you and Dr. Smith will get to know one another, you will discuss your goals, and Dr. Smith will help you decide whether you are the right candidate for breast augmentation using fat transfer. Dr. Smith will also used advanced 3D imaging equipment to simulate possible results that you can expect. This process is also very helpful in helping you communicate your ideal breast size and shape to Dr. Smith.
Who is an Ideal Candidate for Fat Transfer Breast Augmentation?
Dr. Smith will ask you for your medical history and information regarding alcohol or tobacco use. Dr. Smith will also conduct a physical examination of your breasts, breast skin, thighs, flanks, and other potential donor areas.
This will help them determine if;
You have extra fatty tissue on your body- For plastic surgeons to successfully conduct breast augmentation with fat transfer, patients must have enough fat at their donor sites. This will be clear from your consultation with Dr. Smith.
You are close to your ideal weight and in good health.
You do not smoke – Smoking increases fat loss and will have a negative impact on the final results.
We can meet your expectations- Fat transfer to the breasts usually results in a real breast volume increase, however the volume attainable with fat transfer is generally less than we can achieve with breast implants.
How do I prepare for a fat transfer?
Meet with a board certified plastic surgeon and perform 3D imaging to decide on size and shape goals.
Get as close to your stable goal weight as possible.
Ensure you are medically optimized.
Follow any instructions from your doctor regarding medications, supplements and substances to avoid before and after the procedure.
Stop smoking for at least 4 weeks before and after the procedure.
How Should You Choose the Right Surgeon for Fat Transfer Breast Augmentation
The right surgeon will be board certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery, be expert in fat transfer, and make you feel safe and comfortable. He or she will listen to your concerns, provide clear answers to your questions, and help alleviate your fears. There are also other things you can do to ensure that you are under the best possible care.
You should:
1. Ask about their medical background and academic qualifications.
2. Check whether they are certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery. Although there are other “boards,” this is the only board recognized by the American Board of Medical Specialties that can legitimatley certify a plastic surgeon.. The American Board of Cosmetic surgery is NOT recognized by the American Board of Medical Specialties as a legitimate certifying body.
3. Confirm whether they have a good reputation in the NYC medical community.
4. Ask them about their experience level and comfort with the procedure.
5. Talk to other New York City patients. A good physician is likely to have many happy patients who speak highly of him or her.
Once you are satisfied with the surgeon and have decided to go forward with him or her, you can schedule the procedure. The doctor will then take pre-operative photographs which will help in planning for your surgery and are useful for before and after comparisons.
You may also have another consultation for more planning and filling in the necessary paperwork. Your surgeon may also advise you to discontinue certain medications and stop smoking for four weeks before and after the surgery for the best results.
The Surgery
Before the procedure is performed, the operating team marks your breasts and donor sites. Fat grafting breast augmentation is performed under general anesthesia and takes 1.5- 2 hours to complete. During the grafting procedure, fat is harvested via liposuction from the donor sites and collected in a sterile container where excess fluid is removed. The surgeon will then transfer fat into your breasts via small, well-hidden incisions at the base of the breasts.
Recovery
After breast fat transfer, the patient should;
Avoid wearing tight bras or undergarments on the breasts
Wear compression garments on the harvest areas for as long as the doctor recommends
Avoid sleeping on one’s stomach for about six weeks after the procedure.
The results of breast augmentation with fat grafting will take three to six months to be fully visible. Nonetheless, you should be able to return to work within a few days after the surgery.
Since breast augmentation with fat transfer uses natural fat cells, and most of the graft (about 70% in most cases) will attach to the patient’s blood supply in the breasts, the results will be permanent.. However, while the fat cells that do survive will last for the long term, a touch-up procedure is sometimes performed 6-12 months after the initial procedure to account for fat cells that did not “take” in the first place.
Advantages of Fat Transfer Breast Augmentation
-
There is minimal scarring
-
It results in breasts that look and feel natural
-
Rapid recovery
-
It is a “two-in-one” procedure- it will make your breasts bigger and remove excess fat from other parts of your body, slimming your figure.
What are the risks of fat transfer breast augmentation?
-
Lumps and bumps
-
Decreased ability to breastfeed
-
Changes to nipple sensation
-
There is no increase in the risk of breast cancer, but grafts could make mammograms harder to read, necessitating biopsies.
What is the Cost of Fat Transfer Breast Augmentation?
Fat transfer breast augmentation is an advanced, highly-specialized technique. Pricing will vary depending on the size and complexity of each case. $10,000-$14,000 is a reasonable expectation for the cost of this procedure, but will vary by geography, surgeon’s qualifications, and other factors. Please get in touch so we can provide you with a better estimate for your specific situation.
Post-operative care instructions
You can generally expect to return to your office 48-72 hours after fat grafting to the breasts. We will ask you to refrain from exercise for 2 weeks, and gradually ramp back up to your full activity level 2 – 4 weeks after the procedure. Smoking is strictly prohibited for 4 weeks after the procedure as it will interfere with graft take. More information will be given on a patient-specific basis.
Fat Transfer Breast Augmentation Before And After
Fat transfer breast augmentation is intended to achieve a maximum of about 1.5 cups in size increase due to pressure on the fat graft from the breast skin at greater volumes. Patients seeking larger changes can consider an additional round of transfer 6 months after the initial procedure. The patients shown here were looking for a natural appearance and modest size increase, and therefore opted only for a single round of fat transfer. File names are captions.
Fat Transfer Breast Before And After Photos
Fat Transfer Breast Augmentation
FAQ’s
On average, about 70% of the fat that we transfer to your breasts will last permanently. When your weight goes up and down, your breast size will naturally fluctuate with these changes. Just like in your other body areas, grafted fat cells get larger and smaller, respectively. Generally speaking, fat cells are not created and destroyed in response to weight change.
How much fat do you have? (Plastic surgery humor). The reality is that fat can be grafted to the breast until the process is limited by the skin envelope. That is, you can add fat until things get too tight. After the initial procedure, additional rounds (or “stages”) of fat grafting can be performed as needed to get the desired result. We are ultimately limited both by how much room there is in your breasts to accept fat, and how much fat you have available to graft.
Whereas in a fat graft or a fat transfer, you're not hooking up any blood vessels. You're dealing with individual cells. So initially we are relying on the environment of those cells to be able to provide the same services as blood vessels. So we need those cells to get oxygen from their environment, and we need them to be able to get rid of waste products without the direct connection of a blood supply. So they do that by essentially releasing waste products into their environment and taking in the nutrients and oxygen that they need from their environment for the first several days after they're transplanted. Ultimately new blood vessels do grow into these cells and they start to function like many organ transplants once they do have an independent blood supply. So sorry for getting into the weeds there with the science, but all of this is to say that fat transfer or fat grafting is essentially a form of cellular transplantation from one part of the body to another.
Fat transfer or fat grafting has had all kinds of uses. It's very popular in breast reconstruction. If we need a little more volume in the reconstructed breasts, we simply harvest fat from one part of the body and add it to the breasts to make them a little more voluminous or to improve their shape. We can use similar strategies in breast augmentation, either to enhance the appearance of a breast implant-based breast augmentation, or to do a breast augmentation with fat grafting or fat transfer on its own. Both of those things are fairly popular now. One of my favorite uses for fat grafts is in facial rejuvenation, and we can use fat to rejuvenate the face in several different ways. One of the main things that leads to the classic appearances of facial aging is the loss of facial volume. So instead of using fillers to increase facial volume and improve facial structure, we can actually use fat grafts and transfer fat from elsewhere in the body to the face to create a more youthful appearance.We can also use fat grafting for facial rejuvenation in combination with a facelift. So where a facelift is excellent for dealing with skin laxity and we can reposition the deeper tissues of the face, there's a limit to how much volume change and volume repositioning we can do with the facelift because if you've already lost a lot of fat from your face, you can't create that fat from nowhere. Whereas with fat grafting, you have a whole new kind of flexibility. So you can reposition the facial foundation with the facelift. You can re-drape the skin to be exactly where you'd like it to be to have a nice youthful contour. But now you have this really great source of volume in the form of fat from elsewhere in the body, and we can do fat grafting at the same time as a facelift to both build that foundation and also increase facial volume, build a really nice youthful appearance.
