Is drainless Tummy Tuck a safe procedure?

Joderbug, I would venture to say that very few plastic surgeons perform tummy tuck surgery without drains at this point in time.  The concept of  "drainless" tummy tucks has been proposed by the aforementioned father and son team (Pollack and Pollack), however, even they are not so dogmatic... more

According to answers posted on this site it seems that performing a tummy tuck without a drain is seldom recommended. There was a similar debate concerning drains after a facelift many years ago, and again surgeons divided into those that did drain and those that did not. Today very few surgeons consider using... more

Drain less Tummy Tuck operations are performed by Plastic Surgeons who use a quilting technique. In this procedure, multiple sutures are placed between the muscle and fat layer to quilt the skin like a down comforter. It requires a lot more time in the OR and needs an experienced physician. We perform more... more

The drainless technique is based on putting stitches to "quilt" the skin down to the abdominal wall, called "progressive tension sutures" (PTS).   I started using them about 2 years ago because  on bigger cases like body lifts they help prevent any bleeding from one area... more

In spite of new techniques developed to try and eliminate postop seromas and the use of drains, seroma formation remains a problem without drains. I continue to use drains because of this.

Hello, The risk of a collection of fluid that could relax an otherwise tight tummy is too high for me to recommend tummy tuck surgery without drains. While I would love to offer this to my clients, I would not want to have to explain why my results were less tight than they are right now using drains.

Drainless tummy tuck is safe. If your surgeon has used the procedure and has sticked with it it has probably worked for him. Surgeons tend to do those things that have been reliable and predictable for them and many are not willing to change until clear benefits have been shown for a new or different technique.

The vast majority of Plastic surgeons wish they could do their tummy tucks without drains AND 100% of our patients wished we could do it this way. Over the years, multiple colleagues came with various suggestions on how to prevent the use of drains or be able to remove them a day or two after the operation.... more

I personally would not do a TT without drainage because of the risk of a seroma. Interestingly though, about 4 years ago I switched from using 2 rather large drains to using only 1 which is about the size of a piece of spaghetti and just slides out painlessly. The seroma rate has gone to essentially zero with... more

The procedure you are describing usually goes by the term "progressive tension suture" abdominoplasty because of the sutures that are placed inside, which distribute the tension instead of placing it all at the edge. The other benefit is that the internal stiches close off the space where fluid... more