Can facial fat grafting treat fat atrophy caused by lasers?

Question

Does anyone have any experience with facial fat grafting and fat atrophy caused by lasers? Is there any success (longer than two years) for this specific situation? I cannot find a single successful case.

Mark G. Albert, MD, FACS · Answer

I have many patients who had resurfacing or tightening treatments and feel that they lost volume afterward. They successfully underwent FFG and were pleased with the fat retention and result.

Jason Emer, MD · Answer

ive never seen fat atrophy from lasers unless someone was truly burned from a laser. yes fillers, fat and sculptra, bellafill and even silicone can all be used for volume loss.  Best, Dr. Emer.

Patrick Flaharty, MD FAACS · Answer

If the fat loss occurred as a result of direct damage to the fat cells from a laser without damaging the surrounding soft tissue and vasculature then fat grafting should work to correct the volume loss. Fat grafting involves placing small clusters of living fat cells into host tissue. In order for the fat to survive it requires good technique and healthy host tissue.  If the soft tissue (fat, muscle, and vasculature) at the host site is healthy it will provide a suitable environment for the transferred fat cells to survive. If the host tissue has been damaged (scarred) and there is not a healthy environment of soft tissue to place the grafts then the fat transfer is much less likely to be successful. It all depends on healthy host tissue and good technique. Consulting with a surgeon experienced in fat grafting techniques would be the best way to see if you are a suitable candidate for this procedure.

Mats Hagstrom, MD (license on probation) · Answer

I can’t say  I have specifically treated someone with facial fat transfer to restore fat lost through a laser treatment.

Still, I’ve been doing fat transfer for over 20 years.

To me it seems like this would be one very good application or use a fat transfer.

Generally speaking fat transfer is good for creating diffuse overall volume especially in areas that have an abundance of soft tissue with a rich blood supply.

Fat transfer is not good at giving significant volume in small spaces and it is not as good as fillers for giving very precise volume in small spaces. I’m assuming the laser treatment simply removed fairly fairly modest amount of fat over most of your cheeks/neck or wherever the treatment was done.

Obviously seeing before and after pictures if available would be ideal in making an assessment.

I think grafting conservative long individual beads are fat adjacent to each other in a crisscross pattern over the area will you need volume should be able to do the trick. As a general principle I believe patients are better served with having modest treatments coming back for a second procedure if needed rather than trying to overdraft and get everything done with one surgery.
I’m guessing most or at least some plastic surgeons do these as office-based procedures.  I did not recommend any provider store human fat for future treatments.

This should be a good application of fat transfer.

In general Eyeview facial fat transfer as being inferior to fillers because it is somewhat imprecise and somewhat unpredictable.  typically when these issues come up it is from the use of fat transfer in very small specific areas like the nasal labial folds or around the eyes.

Like I said, without pictures it’s hard to make an assessment.

I suggest having multiple in person consultations with several board-certified plastic surgeons who seem to have a solid track record for facial fat transfer procedures.

Personally I do very little facial fat transfer but lots and lots of fat transfer and breast and buttocks.

I am more or less gave up on facial fat transfer about 10 years ago because fillers work so much better.

I think you should consider that transfer transfer as perhaps the ideal gym options at least based on what you said in your post.

Best of luck,

Mats Hagstrom MD

Robert T. Buchanan, MD (retired) · Answer

Fat grafting requires 2 things, a source of good fat and a vascular bed into which to place it. The latter is the biggest problem in your case. Whether the fat graft takes or not will depend on the blood supply in the area and how much scar was created by the laser. Make sure you see an expert in fat grafting.

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