Approx. 50% of Fat Survives when Fat Grafting but What's the Time Frame for This to Happen?

The survival of fat grafts after injection can be quite variable in terms of ultimate survival and retention. However, the process to get to the final result seems to be fairly consistent. My observation has been that what you see at about three months after the procedure is what will be retained on a long-term basis. This will obviously depend on how much fat was injected. Smaller amounts will show sooner how much fat will stay versus larger volume fat grafts will take longer to see the final results due to a more protracted absorption phase.

The survival of fat grafts and the ability to confirm fat survival depends on multiple factors:
- The suction (Vacuum) applied to avulse and remove the fat from the donor site, if excessive, can kill the fat cells
- deprived from its blood supply, the fat undergoes trauma outside the body and chilling it can reduce its metabolism and nned for oxygen thereby prolonging its survival outside the body
- gentle centrifuging of the fat can remove blood and dead cells allowing the surgeon to inject pure fat and more carefully assess the true volume of fat transfer but centrifuging at high G forces will kill fat cells resulting in a higher percentage of fat transfer survival
- The amount of blood vessels in the grafted area and the presence of either scarring or bacteria would greatly affect the ability of the tissue to support and encourage fat graft survival
Finally,
- all fat transfer is associated with swelling caused by the surgical introduction and placement of the fat grafts.
In is agreed that the fat that is present at 3-4 month after the transfer represents successful fat transferts. But as long as the swelling persists it is impossible to separate graft "take" from post-surgical swelling. Only once the swelling has resolved can we asses the true extent of fat take and post surgical swelling can last over 3 months.

Dr. Peter Ajdea