Cell saver for BBL, what exactly is it?

Cell Saver is a device used in trauma surgery and cases with the potential for large volume blood loss. When you suction up the lost blood (typlcally in a body cavity during the surgery) it is circulated through a storage device that washes the blood and allows it to be re-injected back into the patient. It is essentially a device to transfuse back your own blood that is lost in surgery.
In my limited experience, you should not need a Cell Saver during lipo/BBL as you should not be losing that much blood during liposuction.

This was the first paragraph that popped up with a Google search.

I think it explains a cell saver quite well.

Cell savers” are instruments that collect blood lost during surgery. The RBCs are washed with normal saline and concentrated to make an approximate 225 mL unit with a hematocrit of ~ 55%. RBC units can be either directly transfused into the patient or washed again and stored.

When good surgical technique is used for both liposuction and fat transfer we have very little blood loss.

This requires using the appropriate amount of tumescent solution, placing it to mess up the solution properly and giving it enough time to work properly.

Occasionally plastic surgeons are in a hurry and don’t feel like sitting around for 10 to 15 minutes allowing the tumescent solution to get into full affect. The solution has a drug called epinephrine that causes blood vessels to tightly constrict significantly lowering blood loss for this procedure. when the steps are not done properly blood loss with liposuction it goes up dramatically.

For those cases using a cell saver is a nice idea because people feel better having a normal red blood cell count and getting blood transfusions from someone else’s blood is considered undesirable.

Using good technique patients should not require blood transfusions from other people or their own blood but I suppose in large cases getting some blood back may be a nice advantage.

Talk to your surgeon about it

Best,

Mats Hagstrom MD