Wash Away Fat with Body Jet Liposuction ~ Claim Check

The use of water pressure to remove your body fat has caught the attention of people looking for alternatives to invasive liposuction surgery or laser liposuction. But what are the facts about Water Jet Liposuction, Body Jet, or water-assisted liposuction?

Guest Post
by Jeffrey Kenkel, MD
Dr. Kenkel is a nationally recognized plastic surgeon. He is a Professor and Vice-Chairman at the Department of Plastic Surgery at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.  More about Dr. Kenkel

Claim: - Water-assisted liposuction is less invasive than liposuction

Reality – this technology uses the same types of cannulas and infiltration fluid that we have used in liposuction for nearly 3 decades. The difference is the technique superhydrates the tissues with the fluid, separating the fat with fluid. The fat is still avulsed from its location, perhaps just a bit easier.

Claim: - Water-assisted liposuction offers minimal to no downtime or reduced recovery times

Reality – Liposuction, regardless of the tool used to affect the fat is invasive. Recovery depends on the region(s) of the body treated. One area is quicker to recovery than multiple areas. In fact, if one is not careful you can infuse more fluid into the body’s fat space than we normally see with other techniques

Claim – Water-assisted lipo delivers superior results to other techniques to remove fat

Reality – Results following liposuction of any type ( traditional, ultrasound, laser, VASER or Body Jet) are dependent on the experience and talent of the operating surgeon first and foremost, not the instrument used.

Claim – There are good medical studies that document this technology as superior to others

Reality – Searching the medical literature under Medline failed to yield any studies published on this device. A similar search under Pubmed yielded only three listings under water jet/body jet. Two were foreign publications that were difficult for me to interpret and the third was a study on the use of this device to treat chronic lymphedema (swelling) states. 

Bottom line:  This “tool” may be useful for patients requiring larger amounts of fat grafting as it “washes” it during harvest, rendering it ready for use immediately and may save time. Personally, I found the device to be cumbersome to use and often infiltrated more fluid into the patient than I normally would. We clearly need more evidence-based data to objectively evaluate this device. The hype may just be hype!

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