Facial fat transfer is a minimally invasive plastic surgery procedure that uses your own body fat, taken from the hips, thighs, abdomen, or neck, to add or restore volume to specific areas of the face.
Also known as facial fat grafting, fat injections, or lipofilling, the facial rejuvenation technique can restore volume to the cheeks and temples, plump thin lips, enhance blepharoplasty (eyelid surgery) results, and smooth deep nasolabial folds and marionette lines. It can also improve the appearance of pitted acne scars.
Fat transfer to the face is an outpatient procedure that involves extracting excess fat from one area of the body via a gentle liposuction technique, at times processing the fat cells with a centrifuge or filter, and then injecting the purified harvested fat into the treatment area, to plump, lift, smooth, and reduce volume loss. The most common method of fat transfer, known as microfat transfer, injects the fat in tiny droplets (often called “microdroplets”), explains Dr. Sam Naficy, a board-certified plastic surgeon in Bellevue, Washington.
When fat is further processed, filtered and refined, it becomes “nanofat” that can rejuvenate thin, crepey skin, improving areas like the tear troughs (or under-eye hollows) and the skin of the upper lip. Nanofat does not contain any intact fat cells—since they rupture during processing—so it can’t add volume; it’s used solely to improve the quality, tone, and texture of the skin.
Fat is one of the best sources of stem cells, so autologous ("from the same person") fat transfer provides additional facial rejuvenation and anti-aging benefits, thanks to its growth factors and their ability to stimulate collagen growth beyond the treatment area.
Since nanofat contains fat-derived stem cells, but no whole fat cells, it’s used purely for tissue regeneration. Some doctors complement nanofat or microfat injections with platelet-rich plasma (PRP) or platelet-rich fibrin (PRF) to boost their regenerative effects and, in the case of microfat, “improve the chances of graft survival,” per one recent study.
