53 year old female patient after she had high definition liposuction of her abdomen, back, flanks, arms, and medial thighs – Left Oblique View
53 year old female patient after she had high definition liposuction of her abdomen, back, flanks, arms, and medial thighs – Frontal View
53 year old female patient after she had high definition liposuction of her abdomen, back, flanks, arms, and medial thighs – Left View
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What does ex-vivo liposuction mean for a plus-sized client?
Ex-vivo liposuction has changed the body contouring possibilities for plus-sized clients. Previously, plastic surgeons did not consider patients with a BMI of 25 or greater candidates for high definition body contouring. Plus-sized clients present with moderate to severe excess fat, as well as moderate to severe skin redundancy. These two factors can significantly hinder a surgeons ability to produce high definition results. Today, it has given body sculptors the ability to safely and effectively contour a plus-sized client’s body. There are several advantages for plus-sized clients undergoing ex-vivo liposuction.
What is ex-vivo liposuction?
Plus-sized patients often require an excision in the form of a tummy tuck, lateral thigh tuck and buttock tuck, upper body lift, or lower body lift. As a result of the excision, there are skin flaps that have been removed from the patient’s body. Those skin flaps still have harvestable fat on them. Ex-vivo liposuction allows your SurgiSculpt surgeon to liposuction the fat out of these skin flaps on the table, rather than on the patient.
The ability to perform this procedure for the plus sized patient offers several advantages. First, being able to perform ex-vivo liposuction reduces the operative time. A patient’s excision can be sutured and sealed while liposuction is being performed on the excised skin. Reducing operative times increases the safety of the procedure for a plus sized client. Additionally, the liposuction can be performed more aggressively on the skin flap since there is no risk of mechanical damage to the actual patient’s body.
Ex-vivo liposuction harvests cleaner fat
Second, ex-vivo liposuction harvests cleaner fat. Since the fat is being harvested from a flap of skin that is no longer connected to the patient’s body there is no active blood flow through the tissue. As a result, there are less blood products in the fat harvested. This is beneficial when thinking about fat grafting and fat viability. Cleaner fat is far more likely to survive the fat grafting process. This means more than 95% of the fat will survive for procedures such as a BBL or fat transfer to the breasts. Another advantage of this procedure provides for the plus-sized patient is liposuction volume. In California, liposuction is limited to 5L. However, while performing ex-vivo liposuction, harvesting upwards of 9-10L of fat is possible. This fat can then be used to contour the plus-sized client’s buttock, breasts, or any other desired area.
In summary, ex-vivo liposuction for the plus-sized client offers several advantages. Safety is a big consideration for plus sized clients. Ex-vivo liposuction increases the safety of the procedure and offers fat harvesting and viability advantages. More fat can be liposuction using ex-vivo technique, which can then be used to contour the client’s body.