How successful are facial fat transfers to the forehead area?

Fat transfer to the face is inherently, imprecise, unpredictable, and unforgiving if patients don’t like the results.
Mastering the procedure has a long learning curve.
Provider selection is absolutely paramount.
The success of the procedure depends on multiple variables.
In order for fat grafting to be successful there has to be an ample supply of host tissue.
Areas that are devoid of host tissue will not be successful and will decrease grafted fat survival.
The temples tend to not have good fat survival for this reason. The forehead has the frontals muscle that can serve as host tissue but the muscle patten pattern varies on different individuals.
The forehead tends to be unforgiving if the procedure leaves contour irregularities from fat necrosis. This risk is minimized by using good technique and avoiding over grafting.
It’s a pretty complex topic and there are NO simple yes or no answers. In the end everything depends on patient candidacy and the skill of the provider. Some facial areas have more host tissue and will allow better fat survival than others.
The first step is usually getting a quality assessment and working on finding the right provider.
To do that, I recommend patients have multiple in person, consultations with senior, board-certified plastic surgeons, who seem to have extensive experience with the procedure.
During each consultation asked each provider to open up their portfolio and enjoy their entire collection of before and after pictures of previous patients, who had similar facial characteristics to your own.
An experienced provider should have no difficulty showing you the before and after pictures of at least 50 previous patients.
Being shown a small number of pre-selected images, representing only the best results of a providers career is insufficient to get a clear understanding of what average results look like in the hands of each provider, what your results will look like or how many of these procedures they’ve actually done.
Recognize that fat transfer results can look very impressive Early on but early results. Do not represent final long-term outcomes.
In order for pictures to be representative after pictures should never be taken less than three months from the date of the procedure.
Never assume after pictures of fat transfer results are long-term outcomes. Always confirm the timeframe of when pictures were taken.
Best,
Mats Hagstrom MD.