When considering plastic surgery to enhance the appearance of the breasts and increase their volume, it is important to know that most plastic surgeons will tell you about two procedures available nowadays: implant surgery and fat transfer.
Many of the details of breast implant surgery are well-known nowadays as the procedure has been successfully performed for more than half a century and the information is available everywhere online. Fat transfer to the breasts is a more modern procedure that was developed with the purpose of achieving an augmentation with less potential complications and risks than breast implant surgery. Fat transfer is also performed on the buttocks and hips and other areas of the body that could use added volume, such as the face.
Fat transfer has multiple benefits, and probably the most important is that it provides good results in terms of reshaping the body and the profile of the patient, and not only the area targeted with the transfer. Fat transfer can only be performed after liposuction. Liposuction is performed on areas of the body with an excess of adipose tissue. This way, the plastic surgeon will collect the fat that will be later on processed and reinjected into the breasts. This means that to be eligible for this procedure, the patient needs to have areas of excess fat in the body.
Fat transfer to the breasts is considered the “natural” method to increase the size of the breasts. It is associated with few potential complications and the risks are minor. However, patients interested in undergoing fat transfer should be aware of the fact that this procedure can’t deliver the same type of augmentation as implants can.
Breast implant surgery can increase the size of the breasts with exactly the volume of the implants used. This volume of the breasts is easily sustainable in time as breast implants are not affected by external or internal factors. When it comes to the results achieved with fat transfer, the quantity of fat that can be injected during one fat transfer session is limited. Moreover, not all the fat injected during surgery will survive and develop a new blood network. Up to 30% of the fat injected can be reabsorbed by the body in the first two months after the procedure. Ulterior weight fluctuations can also affect the results. This means that if the patient loses weight, chances are the volume of the breasts will be affected as well.
In some cases, the recommendation will be to undergo breast implant surgery in combination with fat transfer to achieve superior aesthetic results.