Stem Cell Breast Augmentation

Fat grafting for breast augmentation

Breast Augmentation is one of the most popular plastic surgery procedures. It is estimated that more then 2 million women in America had their breasts enlarged.

Despite been a common procedure and despite the satisfaction rate among women who had it done is close to 95%, Breast augmentation is a procedure which has a rather high incidence of complications and a reoperation rate up to 50%. Most of the complications and the reasons of reoperations are links to the implants. Both silicone and saline implants have similar rate of complications and this has to do more of the nature of the implants then other causes. The body treats the implant as a foreign body and tends to form a capsule (scar tissue) around it. This capsule remains thin in some of the patients but up to 40% of the patients develop a thick capsule with consequent hardening of the breasts, pain and, in extreme cases, deformity of the breasts. These complications require the need of a reoperation, excision of the scar tissue and at time exchange of the implants.

The event (scar tissue) can recur after the reoperation and there fore could be a very devastating problem. Implants can also rupture, causing leaking of the silicone gel in the surrounding tissue. Most of the time the silicone is confined to the capsule and only in rare occasions, does leak trough the breast tissue. Other complications of breast augmentation include rippling of the implant causing a visible change, and in some instances, infection, requiring the need of remove the implants.

In the last year or so, the attention of the plastic surgery arena has shifted in the search of an alternative to implants in breast enlargement.

Fat grafting has surged at the top of the list as an alternative to the implants in the last year or so. Breast contains fat in large amount so fat grafting seems to be ideal filler for breast enlargement. Also because fat is removed from an area which has it in excess, it seems to kill two birds with one stone.

Fat grafting for breast augmentation is a promising procedure but it has still some controversial points. First and most important safety: fat grafting, when is injected in a large enough quantity to make a different, may not survive because the blood supply may not be sufficient. The end result is called fat necrosis and this event can cause permanent artifacts in the breast tissue that can mimic the look of calcification secondary to cancer. So the concern is that in some instances, the two could look alike and it could be a problem in differentiating them. Radiologists are getting very sophisticated in detecting breast cancers and in the future the problem should be completely resolved.

Also Fat grafting has a high incidence of reabsorption there fore the result may be more permanent. On the opposite spectrum, if the patient would have to gain weight, obviously the shape and dimensions of the breast could vary substantially.

More sophisticated ways of "turbo charge" the fat cells so they will last longer are now available. Fat contains adult stem cells in large quantity. New technology is on the horizon which will allow us to treat the fat trough a device with a complicated enzymatic treatment, so we could extract stem cells and then use them again to increase the longevity of the fat grafting. This way we would have a more long lasting result and more predictability.

Breast augmentation remains a very popular procedure and implants remain the product of choice at this moment for enlargement. Fat grafting and stem cell breast augmentation are now considered as valid alternative as long as they are used with caution and by experienced Board Certified Plastic Surgeons. Problems remains to be solved, most importantly the cancer issue, there fore more investigation and research will be necessary in the future to clarify all the issues.