How common is Hypovolemic shock during or after Liposuction of the abdomen of a fit person 5"11 140 pounds?

The short answer is uncommon to the point that I have not seen it in my practice of 20 years or heard of this happening in my community.Blood loss has not been an issue with liposuction after the tumescent technique was developed about 20 years ago. The tumescent technique involves infiltrating a fluid within the tissues that has epinephrine in it. This causes the vessels to constrict so much that the fat that comes out through the tubing is yellow while the old technique yielded red fluid or blood with fat.If your complication was truly hypovolemic shock and not a parasympathetic event then the cannula may have directly tore a large vessel in the subcutaneous tissue like the superficial inferior epigastric vessels other periumbilical vessels.

Thank you for your question. The condition of hypovolemic shock after liposuction alone is exceedingly rare. The limits of the amount of fluid that we can deliver prior to the liposuction (called tumescent), and what can safely be removed with the selection process has been very well studied. Board-certified plastic surgeons are well aware of what he recommended limits are, and there are position papers published on this topic. As long as we stay under these amounts, that would be an extremely uncommon complication in an otherwise healthy patient. 

Hypovolemic shock is extremely rare when a patient is properly monitored and hydrated during the procedure.

Hypovolemic shock is extremely rare, yet an extremely serious complication. The amount of fat removed with liposuction as well as the amount of bleeding associated with the process are determinants of the risk of hypovolemic shock. You should make sure your surgery is being done by a well trained surgeon ( Diplomat of the American Board of Plastic Surgery ) and is being done in a safe environment (certified operating room) with appropriate monitoring. These are all important points to discuss with your surgeon prior to scheduling surgery. For the most part, liposuction is a very safe procedure when done carefully.

Hypovolemic shock is a very serious condition. This is extremely uncommon to see during or after a liposuction procedure. An experienced surgeon will have the patient properly prepared before the surgery and will ensure that the patient is monitored appropriately during the procedure. The surgeon should know how much fat can be removed safely for each specific patient. It is recommended that if there is more than 5000 cc of fat removed, the patient should stay overnight in a 23 hour facility to be monitored. Discuss this with your surgeon.

Dear foreveryoung908,

The relative risk of a mortality
after small zone outpatient tumescent liposuction has not been accurately
quantified. The relative risk of death
after an in-hospital general anesthetic hernia repair is approximately 1 in
50,000. Large volume liposuction, 5
litres of combined aspirate or more, in all probability contains a mortality
rate of somewhere between 1 in 50 and 1 in 100,000. One of the myriad causes of death would very
rarely be hypovolemic shock generally from some degree of negligence or
extremely rare complication. Far more
common after liposuction in multiple zones and high volume removal is a deep
venous thrombosis and pulmonary embolism, again exceedingly rare if
prophylactic blood thinning is exercised.
With the modern techniques for tumescent liposuction, laser lipolysis
(SmartLipo), Vaser Lipo and BodyTite radio frequency assisted liposuction, the
process is generally a much safer gentler phenomenon small zone fat reduction
such as you’ve outlined in the absence of surgical misadventure would be
expected to have an extremely low probability of any significant or serious
complication.

I hope this information helps in your
prolonged and exhaustive online review of the risks of liposuction.

Best of luck.

To find out more, please visit the
link below.

R. Stephen Mulholland, M.D.

Certified Plastic Surgeon

Yorkville, Toronto

If you go to a board certified PS you have very little chance of this happening. there have been deaths reported in the newspapers but this is much more commonwhen the patient went to someone who was not board certified in PS.you should be fine. good luck with your surgery.david berman md