Will a facial fat transfer be effective after thermal damage from HIFU ultrasound?

Question

Do facial fat transfers work after thermal damage to the face with HIFU ultrasound?

Ajaya Kashyap, MD · Answer

Thank-you for your question. Fat grafting can usually help when fatty tissue or skin has been damaged by HIFU or other similar techniques, by promoting healing and also replenishing subcutaneous fat. Please discuss your concerns with a Board Certified Plastic surgeon who can examine you and help you. All the best!

Defne Erkara, MD · Answer

Hi fat tissue transfer contains stem cells. These cell are ver effective in skin rejuvenation. They can make the skin quality higher, restore the subskin fat tissue and also hava affect on the epidermal area. They reduce the skin color defects and give shining appearance to the skin surface. So I recommend fat transfer definitely.

Mats Hagstrom, MD (license on probation) · Answer

It’s a little hard to make an assessment with such limited information.
As a general statement fat transfer is not a treatment for a thermal or burn injury.
Fat grafting can give overall diffuse volume enhancement in the body or the face.
It’s not good at giving precise amounts of volume in small areas.
Instead it’s better for giving diffuse overall volume and larger areas.
If your thermal injury resulted in only fat volume loss and fat grafting may be a treatment option.
Finally facial fat grafting is a tricky procedure. It is inherently and precise, unpredictable and in someways somewhat crude.
Fillers are generally considered far superior and that fillers are highly predictable very precise and extremely forgiving.
If patients are unhappy with the outcome of grafted fat especially if too much fat is grafted or if the fat graft survived in an uneven Manor very difficult to improve on the outcome.
It is not an easy procedure to do well consistently.
To give you any type of real answer regarding what would be appropriate treatment options we should ideally see you before and after pictures.
Anyone considering facial fat grafting should be very careful regarding who they choose for the procedure.
Because it’s technically difficult and inherently unpredictable choosing the most talented and experience provider minimizes the chances of undesirable outcomes.
Do that may have a multiple in person consultations with local board-certified plastic surgeons who seem to have evidence of having done a lot of facial fat grafting in the past.
During each consultation ask each provider to open up their portfolio and show you their entire collection of before and after pictures. being shown a handful of preselected images which must likely represent the best results of the providers career is insufficient to get a clear understanding of what average results look like or how many of these procedures anyone provider has actually performed.
Fat transfer results can look very impressive early after the procedure but this however does not necessarily represent final results.
For fat transfer results make sure there is always a minimum of three months between the before and after picture preferably six months.
Ask providers to show you examples of excellent outcomes, average outcomes and outcomes that didn’t turn out the way they had hoped.
Ask them what the revision rate is and what their revision policy is.
Professional fat transfer it’s not unusual for patients to require more than one session to get ideal outcomes.
Do you need to make it very clear on how many sessions a fat transfer the provider believes you’ll need and if any of these are included or what the price will be if you need more than one procedure.
Fat transfer can easily make things worse rather than better.
Finding the right provider is always the most important variable second to getting an accurate diagnosis and having a quality assessment.
If this is a thermal injury with skin damage and fat transfer is not a reasonable treatment.
Best,
Mats Hagstrom MD

Robert T. Buchanan, MD (retired) · Answer

The problem with fat transfer after HIFU is that the transferred fat requires a good blood supply in the area in which it is put. HIFU and other procedures in the subcutaneous tissue cause scarring which reduces blood supply. If you wish to consider this, you need to see a true expert in this and expect at least two or three sessions of fat grafting in order to achieve your desired outcome.

Will a facial fat transfer be effective after thermal damage from HIFU ultrasound?

Answers (4)

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