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Fat Transfer Surgery for Facial Volume
Dr. Ilya Reyter is an expert in facial volume restoration and instructs physicians to perform advanced volume restoration techniques at the University of Southern California, Keck School of Medicine.
By studying MRI images of the aging face, Dr. Reyter has recognized that bone and fat are reabsorbed from the face over time. Too often, patients and physicians focus on the droopiness of the face and do not take into consideration the concomitant loss of facial volume. The most obvious features of facial volume loss include depressions of the areas just below the lower eyelids (tear trough), central cheek, temples, and the chin. Since bone and fat provide the majority of volume for the face, when lost, the facial skin appears to sag and droop. Just as a deflated balloon needs volume to restore its shape, a youthful appearance can often be restored just by correcting the loss of volume.
Traditional techniques for correcting sagging, drooping skin usually focus on removing what appears to be excess tissue. However, this can give a patient a pulled, tight, or “surgical” look. Often this completely misses the goal of appearing more youthful. After all, when looking at the faces of people in their teens, twenties, and thirties, the fullness of the facial features is obvious.
For people with only minimal volume loss, hyaluronic acid fillers, such as Restylane, Perlane and Juvederm can be used for volume restoration.
However, for larger areas of volume loss, one of the best treatment options is fat transfer, or fat grafting. During this procedure, a patient’s own fat cells are gently removed from an unwanted location and injected into the facial region. All steps of the treatment are performed with 1-2 millimeter instruments called cannulas, leaving almost no visible marks on the skin. Using only local anesthesia, this procedure is performed quickly and easily in the office, and requires minimal recovery time. Side effects are usually quite mild and include minor swelling and occasional bruising, both tending to resolve a few days after the treatment.
Fat Transfer and Stem Cells
An added benefit of fat transfer is the recent discovery that adult fat tissue has a large number of stem cells. These stem cells are ultimately transplanted into the face, along with the fat, during a fat grafting procedure. It is very possible that some of the dramatic improvements seen after fat transfer are attributable to the activity of these transplanted stem cells after the procedure. While we can’t yet offer a stem cell transfer to the face, fat transfer seems to be the next best thing.
