Difference Between Fat Grafting and Fat Injection?

Fat grafting is the same thing as fat injection.  Grafting is a term used in plastic surgery when tissue is taken from one place and transferred to another and then it is allowed to heal in place.  The healing depends on the ability of this transferred tissue to survive long enough until new blood vessels are formed to provide blood supply, oxygen, and nutrients to this transferred or grafted tissue.

Fat injection is a more descriptive term for the same thing, as the fat is actually injected into the target areas, in the process of fat grafting.

Sincerely,

Martin Jugenburg, MD

When the fat is processed  and injected correctly , fat grafting (fat injections) not only provides volume to fill in wrinkles, but it also helps the skin to become more radiant and youthful.

To read more about fat grafting and learn why the skin become radiant, please watch my video on facial fat grafting below.

Ricardo Rodriguez, MD

Baltimore, Maryland

Only the terminology is different;  the procedure is the same. Not all fat lives in the new environment, some may and some will be dissolved by your body. There is no guarantee as to how much fat will remain and often it is done as a series of several sessions even after a facelift.

This is a minor semantic and technical distinction.
Fat injection is a method of fat grafting.
Let me explain. Fat grafting literally means taling fat from one part of your body and transplanting it to a new location. The transferred fat (the "graft") needs to survive in it's new location and this process is referred to as the "take" of the graft.
The transferred fat can be achieved using:

injection
pearl grafting (cutting into small pearl sized pieces)
lumbrical grafts (cutting the fat into cigar shaped pieces)
dermal fat grafts (combining the fat with protions of the skin - dermis)

Surgeons may disagree on the best methods of grafting as well as the methods of processing the fat prior to transfer.

Fat grafting and fat transfer and fat injections are all the same thing. Some fat is removed from desired areas and then treated and injected into the areas that need the volume.
It can be permanent and it will be, but not all the injected fat stays. Different surgeons will quote you different percentages of how much stays. The bottom line is that you may need repeat injection to get the desired long term result that you may be looking for.
Good luck.